Instability and violence in Imperial Rome: A 'laboratory' for studying social contagion?

摘要

Imperial Rome with its >50% assassination rate of emperors, many of whom are depicted in history as deranged', initially appears a chaotic period of history beyond the purview of science. But time series analysis indicates this violence occurred non-randomly: reign length was autocorrelated and demonstrated memory persistence,' and short reigns occurred in clusters. Additionally, deviations from average reign-length occurred in patterns matching the Empire's rise and decline. A model is proposed for how army-backed usurpation and post-coup instability likely generated the observed cycles. The five-century span of Imperial Rome likely makes it the longest-lived regime with fair documentation, and potentially provides a laboratory' with ongoing relevance for studying transmission of violence and instability. (c) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 613-622, 2016