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In the time of the Peloponnesian war, Pisistratus an
Orchomenian had a spite at the nobility, and to make himself popular, favored the common people. The Senate
conspired against him, and treacherously killed him, cutting
him into small gobbets which they carried away with them
in their bosoms, and paring off the surface of the ground
that no signs of the murder might appear. The common
people, however, upon a jealousy of the matter, went
tumultuously to the senate house; but the king's younger
son Telesimachus that was dipped in the conspiracy,
diverted them with a sham story, telling them that he
himself had seen his father in a form more than human,
walking as lively as was possible up the Pisaean mountain.
And so he imposed upon the people.—Theophilus's
Second Book of Peloponnesian Histories.
The Senate of Rome, being hard put to it for the maintaining of a war with so many of their neighbors, thought
it good husbandry to shorten the people's allowance of
corn, which Romulus the king took very ill; and not only
did he restore it to the people, but several great men were
punished for it. Upon this he was murdered in the Senate
by a conspiracy of the nobles, who cut him all to pieces,
and carried them severally away in the lappets of their
garments. The Romans came to the senate house in a
hurry, and brought fire with them to set all in a flame;
but Julius Proculus, one that was in the plot, told them
that he saw Romulus upon a mountain, of a size larger
than any man, and that he was translated into the number
of the Gods. The Romans believed him, and quietly withdrew.—Aristobulus, in the Third Book of his History
of Italy.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5.
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