The traditional story of Romulus’ death was that he was suddenly assumed into heaven in a highly localised and very dense thundercloud while parading the troops outside the walls of Rome, to the surprise of everyone. However, there was a second story which we see in Livy’s History of Rome and in Appian’s Civil Wars. That version says that Romulus began acting as a tyrant towards the end of his reign, and that the cloud which surrounded him that day on the parade ground was not a divine thundercloud but a cloud of dust raised by senators falling on him with knives.
