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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Climate change caused by volcanic eruptions [sciencenews.org] has been linked to the downfall of the Ptolemaic dynasty [wikipedia.org]. Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC:

A series of volcanic eruptions may have helped bring about the downfall of the last Egyptian dynasty 2,000 years ago.

By suppressing the monsoons that swelled the Nile River each summer, triggering flooding that supported the region's agriculture, the eruptions probably helped usher in an era of periodic revolts [nature.com] [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00957-y] [DX [doi.org]], researchers report online October 17 in Nature Communications. That upheaval ultimately doomed the dynasty that ruled Egypt's Ptolemaic Kingdom for nearly 300 years until the death of Cleopatra.

[...] Manning and colleagues pored over historical texts from Ptolemaic Egypt, comparing periods of unrest with the volcanic record in the ice cores. Eruptions coincided with the onset of many recorded revolts. Political instability, famine and drought may have come to a head around 44 B.C., when Italy's Mount Etna erupted explosively. The Ptolemaic dynasty soon came to a close in 30 B.C. with Cleopatra's suicide.

Also at Live Science [livescience.com] and The Washington Post [washingtonpost.com].

Original Submission