Volumnia House is a historic house on a farm in Terrebonne Parish Louisiana near the City of Houma.
Volumnia Barrow Slatter inherited the farm in 1878 from her father Robert Ruffin Barrow, son of Bartholomew Barrow of Afton Villa. Robert Ruffin Barrow owned sixteen farms in three parishes in Louisiana and a few large land holdings in Texas making him one of the biggest agricultural empires in the south before the Civil War.
Volumnia Farm is where he made his home and is continued to be run and operated by his descendants to this day making it one of the oldest family operated and owned farms.
In 1895 a fire partially destroyed the old antebellum home of her father and she built the present Queen Anne Architectural Style House with Eastlake features in its place. Both Robert Ruffin Barrow’s wife and his daughter were named Volumnia.
Volumnia is a character in William Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus, the mother of Caius Martius Coriolanus. She plays a role in Coriolanus’ life, encouraging him in his military success and urging him to seek political office. When the people of Rome put her son in exile and joins their military enemies, she manages to persuade him not to besiege Rome and becomes a heroine to the city.
The play was patterned after real life people and events that happened in ancient Rome. Volumnia was the wife of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus in ancient Rome. Coriolanus was exiled from Rome following a dispute with the tribunes of the plebs, and his family remained in Rome. Coriolanus became a leader of the neighbouring Volsci and led them against Rome, besieging it. Then an embassy of Roman matrons, including Volumnia, their two sons, Coriolanus’ mother Veturia, and other matrons, went to Coriolanus and convinced him to break off the siege. Rome honoured the service of these women by the erection of a temple dedicated to Fortuna (a female deity).
