Lead poisoning: Widespread exposure to lead led to the poisoning of many Romans, although it was primarily the wealthy, who used lead pipes and utensils, that suffered.

Scholars have debated lead poisoning’s impact on Roman history for decades. Some have even argued that lead poisoning played a role in the downfall of the Roman empire. Most of those arguments have ...

Some historians have argued that Roman elites and emperors who purportedly displayed odd, often violent behavior like Caligula and Nero were actually suffering from lead poisoning, and thus that ...

Silver fueled the rise of the Roman Empire. But the ancient process of mining and extracting silver was also making the air thick with lead, scientists found.

Unlike the 20th century, when lead poisoning was primarily due to exposure to leaded gasoline fumes, Roman-era lead exposure was predominantly a byproduct of silver mining.

Lead in the air might have caused an estimated 2.5- to 3-point drop in IQs throughout the Roman Empire, per the research. The new paper doesn’t solve the mystery of whether lead poisoning played ...

Some scholars have hypothesized that lead poisoning played an important role in the decline of the Roman Empire. But that idea has been called into question, at least when it comes to water ...

The extraction and smelting of metals in the Roman Empire between 100 BCE and 200 CE contributed to lead emissions, likely causing a population-wide drop in IQ of about 2.5 to 3 points.

Lead poisoning: Widespread exposure to lead led to the poisoning of many Romans, although it was primarily the wealthy, who used lead pipes and utensils, that suffered.

Roman Empire’s lead pollution was high enough to ... The study also could add fuel to a fraught and long-standing debate whether mass lead poisoning could have contributed to the fall of the ...