[Footnote 1: 1115l. 13s. 3-1/2d.]
28. It was resolved, while they had the Roman army near at hand, to take off Brachyllas, who was the principal leader of the faction which favoured the king; and they chose an opportunity for the deed, when, after having been at a public feast, he was returning to his house inebriated, and accompanied by some of his debauched companions, who, for the sake of merriment, had been admitted to the crowded entertainment. He was surrounded and assassinated by six men, of whom three were Italians and three Aetolians. His companions fled, crying out for help; and a great uproar ensued among the people, who ran up and down, through all parts of the city, with lights; but the assassins made their escape through the nearest gate. At the first dawn, a full assembly was called together in the theatre, by the voice of a crier, as if in consequence of a previous appointment. Many openly clamoured that Brachyllas was killed by those detestable wretches who accompanied him; but their private conjectures pointed to Zeuxippus, as author of the murder. It was resolved, however, that those who had been in company with him should be seized and examined in their presence. While they were under examination, Zeuxippus, with his usual composure, came into the assembly, for the purpose of averting the charge from himself; yet said, that people were mistaken in supposing that so daring a murder was the act of such effeminate wretches as those who were charged with it, urging many plausible arguments to the same purpose. By which behaviour he led several to believe, that, if he were conscious of guilt, he would never have presented himself before the multitude, or, without being challenged by any, have made any mention of the murder. Others were convinced that he intended, by thus unblushingly exposing himself to the charge, to throw off all suspicion from himself. Soon after, those men who were innocent were put to the torture; and, taking the universal opinion as having the effect of evidence, they named Zeuxippus and Pisistratus; but they produced no proof to show that they knew any thing of the matter. Zeuxippus, however, accompanied by a man named Stratonidas, fled by night to Tanagra; alarmed by his own conscience rather than by the assertion of men who were privy to no one circumstance of the affair. Pisistratus, despising the informers, remained at Thebes. A slave of Zeuxippus had carried messages backwards and forwards, and had been intrusted with the management of the whole business. From this man Pisistratus dreaded a discovery; and by that very dread forced him, against his will, to make one. He sent a letter to Zeuxippus, desiring him to “put out of the way the slave who was privy to their crime; for he did not believe him as well qualified for the concealment of the fact as he was for the perpetration of it.” He ordered the bearer of this letter to deliver it to Zeuxippus as soon as possible; but