Plutarch mentions the men in fire, but says nothing of the fear inspired by them or by the ghosts.
The “bird of night sitting at noon-day upon the market place, hooting and shrieking” was probably primarily derived from Plutarch’s “solitary birds to be seen at noon days sitting in the great market place.” The biographer calls them “solitary birds” and makes no reference to any hooting and shrieking. Vergil refers to the “presaging birds”;[[43]] Ovid says that the Stygian owl gave omens of ill in a thousand places;[[44]] Lydgate speaks of the “fowles at noonday”; Marlowe, translating Lucan, that “Ominous birds defil’d the day.” Pescetti, almost literally translating Ovid, has:
“Da mille tetti udito s’è lo stigio
Gufo versi cantar lugubri e mesti.”
He calls the bird the owl: Shakespeare refers to “the bird of night, hooting and shrieking.” The Italian could here supply as much as any of the other non-Plutarchian sources.
Calpurnia says,
“Graves have yawned and yielded up their dead.”
Plutarch mentions the “spirits running up and down in the night”; Vergil, that “spectres strangely pale were seen under cloud of night.”[[45]] Ovid[[46]] says: “And everywhere appeared ghastly spryghtes” (Golding). Lucan mentions the ghosts; so does Lydgate. But none of the above state that “graves have yawned and yielded up their dead.” Pescetti supplies a close parallel:
“Si son visti grand’ombre, de’ sepolcri
Uscite, andar per la città vagando,