query: How did Servius Tullius die?
passage: Servius Tullius
When Servius Tullius arrived at the senate-house to defend his position, Tarquinius threw him down the steps and Servius was murdered in the street by Tarquin's men. Soon after, Tullia drove her chariot over her father's body. For Livy, Tarquinius' impious refusal to permit his father-in-law's burial earned him the sobriquet Superbus (“arrogant” or “proud”),[42] and Servius' death is a "tragic crime" (tragicum scelus), a dark episode in Rome's history and just cause for the abolition of the monarchy. Servius thus becomes the last of Rome's benevolent kings; the place of this outrage – which Livy seems to suggest as a crossroads – is known thereafter as Vicus Sceleratus (street of shame, infamy or crime).[43] His murder is parricide, the worst of all crimes. This morally justifies Tarquin's eventual expulsion and the abolition of Rome's aberrant, "un-Roman" monarchy. Livy's Republic is partly founded on the achievements and death of Rome's last benevolent king.[44]
passage: Porcia (wife of Brutus)
According to the political journalist and classicist Garry Wills, although Shakespeare has Porcia die by the method Plutarch repeats, but rejects, "the historical Porcia died of illness (possibly of plague) a year before the battle of Philippi"...“but Valerius Maximus [mistakenly] wrote that she killed herself at news of Brutus’s death in that battle. This was the version of the story celebrated in works like Martial's "Epigram" 1.42." The claim that Porcia's death occurred before that of Brutus is backed up by a letter sent by Cicero. This letter would have been sent in late June or early July 43 BC, before either battle of Philippi. It further suggests that Porcia did not commit suicide, but died of some lingering illness. As Plutarch states, if the letter was genuine Brutus lamented her death and blamed their friends for not looking after her. There is also an earlier letter from Brutus to Atticus, which hints at Porcia's illness and compliments him for taking care of her. Cicero later wrote his surviving letter to Brutus, consoling him in his grief. This is probably the most accurate account of Porcia's death.