Only a third of Roman emperors died in their bed.
Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge said resolved true; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
What would count as true or false
Judged as of 2018-04-11. The claim is that roughly one third of Roman emperors died natural deaths ('in their bed'). True: standard historical tallies of Roman emperors (with the period and list counted stated) show the share who died of natural causes is about one third (roughly 28–38%). Mostly true: the share falls between about 25% and 42%, or one third holds under one reasonable list (e.g. the principate to 476) but not others. Mixed: credible tallies disagree, with some near one third and others far off. Mostly false: the share is clearly different (e.g. about half, or under 20%), even though violent death was common. False: most emperors died natural deaths.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 Statistical reliability analysis for a most dangerous occupation: Roman emperor - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Nature (Humanities and Social Sciences Communications), by J.H. Saleh · 23 December 2019
“Of the 69 rulers of the unified Roman Empire, from Augustus (d. 14 CE) to Theodosius (d. 395 CE), 62% suffered violent death.”
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E2 Statistical reliability analysis for a most dangerous occupation: Roman emperor - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Nature (Humanities and Social Sciences Communications), by J.H. Saleh · 23 December 2019
“In our case, about 38% of the individuals are (right-)censored by virtue of having died of illness or old age.”
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E3 Only One In Four Roman Emperors Died Of Natural Causes, Study Reveals IFLScience · 18 October 2021
“the study authors reveal that of the 175 men who ruled over the Roman Empire, just 24.8 percent died of natural causes, with the rest being murdered, killed in battle, or forced to kill themselves.”
Reasoning
A peer-reviewed analysis of the 69 rulers of the unified empire, from Augustus to Theodosius, found that 62% died violently [E1] and about 38% died of illness or old age [E2]. That is within the roughly one-third range. A different study counting 175 rulers found that only 24.8% died of natural causes [E3], which is lower than one third but not far off. One third therefore holds under one reasonable list but not under a broader one, which matches the criteria for "mostly true".
Cite this claim
Nassim Taleb, “Only a third of Roman emperors died in their bed.” (said 11 April 2018). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_987f51b6b212, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_987f51b6b212
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.