Was being a ruler the most dangerous job in antiquity?

I compiled a list of King of Kings from Sassanid Persia, and examined the cause of death for each of them.

The results were stunning.

Over 50% of all Sassanid rulers were murdered or likely murdered.

Of course, this list is greatly inflated by the Sassanid Civil War of 628-632, which saw no less than a dozen claimants to the throne come and go, with nearly all of them perishing in less than four years...

But even if one takes the civil war into account, it appears that as ruler of the Persian Empire, you were far more likely to die at the hands of another man (or woman) than any other cause.

As the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus put it, “Royal power desires no associate.”