Brittle power: On Roman Emperors and exponential lengths of rule

In this paper we demonstrate that lengths of rule of Roman Emperors were exponentially distributed, implying that their reigns ceased unexpectedly, without accumulation of prior tensions, political or economic damages, etc. A distribution-free goodness of fit test of exponentiality is used, based on a transformed empirical process. That test is complemented by further techniques which make use of age at ascent to rule.