Paper here, from Christian and Elbourne in Economics Letters, H/T Marginal Revolution. Nice to see a rigorous quantitative paper show the association, although it's not surprising - a simple model of Roman political history is that since there was no formal succession rule, the Emperor had to keep the army satisfied through pay and morale (successful conquest.) Low rainfall leads to starving troops in the provinces leads to a desire for a new emperor and assassination.
Interestingly enough, in 2010 Haber and Menaldo showed that democracies cluster in areas of moderate rainfall, and autocracies cluster in deserts, semi-arid areas, and the tropics. If we assume stability produces a tendency toward democracy, this is consistent with ancient Rome's experience. After all, much of Rome's territory was semi-arid areas.
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