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The Most Dangerous Leadership Role In History: Roman Emperor
Ascendance was a textbook example of a deal with the devil.
6 min readJun 29, 2023
With the near-civil war in Russia this week, there has been much focus on the danger of being the Russian President.
It’s worth examining, perhaps, the most deadly of all leadership roles by a major civilization: Roman Emperor. Consider this — your odds of violent death as gladiator were lower than your odds of violent death as emperor.
Of the 69 rulers of the unified Roman empire, 62% died violently.
Predicting a stab in the back
Academics have built out entire mathematical models predicting the mean time to assassination based on how and when you ruled.
And make no mistake — this job came to many violent ends. Here is a breakdown for the most turbulent period: the Late Roman Empire:
