Most Roman emperors did not die out of office. An exception was Diocletian, who retired after 30 years because of ill health, turning affairs over to a carefully selected, managed, and trained group of successors who promptly failed miserably. Diocletian himself spent his last 10 years or so on a villa happily raising vegetables. His other claim to fame is an attempt to restore the old virtues of the empire, primarily by bringing back wholesome old time-tested religion and getting rid of nasty upstart Christianity. That bloody, reactionary but well intentioned effort gained his evaluation infamy in the centuries to come .

The question, of course, is would the empire have been better served had he remained in office and left vegetables to the peasants. I would answer no. Lots of other problems were combining against the Romans by that time, even though the many reforms of Diocletian did stave off the inevitable for almost two centuries. Another 10 years in office, even if effective, would hardly have changed the course of history dramatically .

The reason this is relevant is that modern aging leaders in business truly believe that the world would fall apart without them and that their imagined godlike power will continue after they are gone. Stocks have a saying: “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” Which should be applied to ancient politicians and business magnates. Perhaps we’d all be happier and better off if they retired and had fun growing cabbages .