‘It is difficult’, writes Jiri Kubie, ‘to think of any Roman leader
who died of old age.’ (‘How to foil an assassin’, 3 April). But among
pre-Christian emperors quite a few died in their beds at advanced ages:
Augustus (76), Tiberius (78), Vespasian (70), Nerva (63), Trajan (64), Hadrian
(62), Antoninus Pius (75), Septimius Severus (65), and Diocletian (68).
And Marcus Aurelius died from plague at the age of 59. Together, these 10
rulers presided over two-thirds of the empire’s first three centuries.
Shane Mage Collier’s Encyclopedia New York
