Around 25 percent of babies in the first century AD did not survive their first year and up to half of all children would die before the age of 10. As a result, the Roman state gave legal rewards ...

Using modern evidence of lead pollution and its health effects, the international team calculates that lead exposure in the Roman golden age could have caused a population-wide drop in IQ of about 2.5 ...

The devastating health effects of lead exposure are well-documented, even at low levels. Modern studies highlight how lead ...

the Roman Empire controlled a vast area spanning Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and even today, remains from the Roman Empire can be found in a wide range of areas. A new study has ...

The authors estimate that children living during the 200-year ... There were many sources of potential lead exposure in the Roman Empire–from utensils and cookware to water pipes and wine.

Silver fueled the rise of the Roman Empire as its coin-based currency accelerated ... enough to cause cognitive decline, especially in children,” Stohl said in a phone interview.

On average, lead levels in children’s blood at the peak of the Roman empire could have risen 2.4 micrograms per decilitre, the researchers found, reducing their IQ by 2.5 to three points.