Lead Poisoning in Rome: The Skeletal Evidence (2012)

The delectable AskHistorians subreddit has a fascinating in-depth thread on this topic, with posts from bona fide Historians: http://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/23o92d/on_cosm...

> "So to sum up: the ancient Romans knew about lead poisoning, they didn't use lead vessels if they could avoid it, and we have no reason to believe acute lead poisoning was endemic among them, let alone a cause for the fall of the empire."

Of course if OP turns up a significant amount of skeletal evidence then all bets are off.