Decimation (punishment)#19th and 20th p century

Decimation was the most extreme punishment of the Roman army, where a tenth of a unit that had proven its cravenness was killed. The Romans believed that it had ancient roots in the early republic – the fifth and fourth centuries – and the theoretically unlimited powers of the Roman magistrate militae ("on campaign").{{harvnb|Taylor|2022|p=105}}. Militae is here locative. The procedure for decimation, as described by Polybius, involved a soldiers' assembly before the tribunes. Then, of the units adjudged cowardly, lots were taken such that a tenth of the men were condemned. Their comrades then killed them with clubs before the survivors were then further punished with barley rations and required to bivouac outside the fortified camp.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|p=106, citing {{harvnb|Polybius|loc=6.38.1–4}} }}{{sfn|Watson|1969|p=119}}

The practice was rare: of all instances, there are only eleven. Five of them date to the late republic from its revival in 72 BC with a further four during the triumviral and civil wars prior to Actium.{{sfn|Pearson|2019|p=684}}

There is a single instance recorded in Livy that predates the middle republic, that of Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis Sabinus in 471 BC, but anachronistic elements of the narrative there suggest ahistoricity.{{harvnb|Goldberg|2015|p=143}}, citing {{harvnb|Livy|loc=2.58–59}} among others, though the specific Appius Claudius named appears inconsistent with that named in {{harvnb|Broughton|1951|p=30}}. Similar judgement of ahistoricity at {{harvnb|Pearson|2019|pp=666–67}}. The middle republican writer Polybius, however, in a detailed narrative, suggests that by the middle republic it was established, if not in practice at least otherwise, as a rhetorical construct.{{harvnb|Taylor|2022|pp=108–9}}, as rhetorical construct contra {{harvnb|Goldberg|2015|pp=143–4}}; Goldberg believes that Polybius' familiarity suggests actual practice. Two other instances are reported in Frontinus but are undated. Associated with the careers of Fabius Rullianus and an unknown Aquilius, these events (if historical) could not have taken place after 259 BC.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|pp=107–8}}

Literary evidence relating to punishment for military offences in the middle republic generally indulges in rhetorical exaggerations. If any instances of decimatio occurred between {{circa|315 BC}} and the historical instance under Crassus in 72, they were likely small enough not to be recorded. Indeed, the Polybian narrative suggests counts of victims fewer than twenty.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|pp=108–9}} If expanded by a factor of ten, the units involved were small and did not exceed {{circa|200}} men. The presence of other non-lethal punishments meted for cowardice and lapses of military discipline – eg demotion, exile of Sicily, subsistence on barley rations, pay deductions, etc – that are well documented in the sources of the period also suggest that decimatio was essentially a rhetorical myth.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|pp=109–10, 115 ("a mirage of aristocratic supremacy")}}

By the early second century BC, the extension of provocatio rights to the military also made it illegal for magistrates to kill or scourge their citizen soldiers, with similar rights also extended late in the second century to allied soldiers under Roman command.{{sfnm|Taylor|2022|1p=113|Faszcza|2018|2p=87, noting passage of the laws extending provocatio rights to citizens on campaign, the leges Porciae, between 199 and 193 BC|Goldberg|2015|3p=154}} Cases of soldiers collectively resisting mass punishments and the necessity of their active participation also suggest that decimation was not at all commonly practicable.{{sfnm|Taylor|2022|1pp=115–16|Pearson|2019|2p=667, 675 ("decimation seems to be a punishment that would only work to enforce cohesion in a legion which was already cohesive")}} Moreover, actual practice of decimation would have alienated Roman citizen voters from the presiding general, who was accountable before both the law courts and the voters.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|pp=113–14, noting cases where unpopular commanders were defeated at the polls and the possibility of damage to a family's political prospects}}Noting an instance of provocatio rights exercised on campaign in 89 BC, {{harvnb|Faszcza|2018|p=87}}, citing {{harvnb|Dio|loc=fr. 30–35, 100.1–3}}.

File:Bust of a Roman, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.jpg

The first historical instance of decimation was in 72 BC under the command of Marcus Licinius Crassus during the Third Servile War. A unit of 500 men who fled from battle was decimated, with some fifty men executed. The narrative in Appian that Crassus decimated either two legions or his entire army (producing fatalities of around 1,000 and 4,000 respectively) are rejected as exaggerations.{{harvnb|Taylor|2022|p=117}}; {{harvnb|Pearson|2019|p=684}}; {{harvnb|Faszcza|2018|p=86 n. 5}}; {{harvnb|Goldberg|2015|p=144 n. 14}}, noting "Appian's version is a slight corruption of the one given by Plutarch; his second is an incredible exaggeration" and citing {{cite book |last=Brunt |first=P A |year=1971 |title=Italian manpower |page=450 |ref=none |mode=cs2}}.

The historian Michael Taylor identifies three major factors for this revival. First, the war being fought was against a slave revolt and therefore constituted a genuine emergency for the Roman state, especially after the defeat of that year's consuls' armies.Similarly to Taylor, {{harvnb|Faszcza|2018|p=86}}. Second, the ascendency of the Sullan regime in the aftermath of the recent civil war and its proscriptions may have set a precedent for ignoring citizen provocatio rights against arbitrary punishment. Third, there was at the time an elite antiquarian intellectual movement which may have suggested to Crassus the hitherto unprecedented option to reviving a punishment last used, if at all, centuries previously.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|pp=117–18}} Indeed, by the first century BC, the Romans had no knowledge of the practice's origins.{{sfn|Pearson|2019|p=667, noting Cicero and Livy's attribution to "unspecified forefathers" and citing: Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 46.128; {{harvnb|Livy|loc=5.6.14–17}}}} The exigencies of the moment may have been sufficient to insulate Crassus from any social or political punishment for his unprecedented actions, which may have also set the precedent for ignoring provocatio rights on campaign, even if contrary to law.{{sfn|Faszcza|2018|pp=91–92, 94–95}}

After Crassus' use in 72 BC, the next possible instances were under Julius Caesar in 49 BC and Mark Antony in 44. However, both were applied only to small groups (in the former killing a tenth of the 120 ringleaders of a mutiny) or with a smaller proportion (in the latter Cicero describes only a targeted killing of supposedly disloyal centurions).{{sfn|Taylor|2022|p=118, citing Cicero, Phillipicae, 3.4, 5.22.}} Further instances appear during the civil war where Caesar's soldiers demand decimation to forego demobilisation in the aftermath of mutiny or defeat. In these instances, decimation was brought up essentially to demonstrate absolute loyalty to Caesar, who in all cases refused.{{harvnb|Taylor|2022|p=116}}; {{harvnb|Faszcza|2018|p=96}}. See also {{cite book |last=Goldsworthy |first=Adrian |title=Caesar: life of a colossus |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |year=2006 |page=407}} The latter instance, if Appian is to believed, also failed to restore discipline, instead increasing anger against Antony's command.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|p=118, citing Appian, Bellum civile, 3.43}} A further instance in 39 BC under Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, proconsular governor of Spain, is documented in Dio: however, the more contemporary source Velleius Paterculus reports only the execution of the fleeing unit's commander.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|p=118, citing: {{harvnb|Dio|loc=48.42.2}}; Velleius Paterculus, 2.78.3}}

The next firmly documented instance was in 36 BC when Mark Antony decimated two cohorts after defeats against the Parthians, producing some 80 fatalities. Plutarch's biography attests that after a defeat in Media:

{{quote|

Antony was enraged, and visited those who had played the coward with what is called decimation. That is, he divided the whole number of them into tens, and put to death that one from each ten upon whom the lot fell. For the rest he ordered rations of barley instead of wheat.{{sfn|Plutarch, Antony|loc=39.7}}

}}

A second instance follows in 34 BC under Octavian for a unit which fled during his campaign in Illyricum.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|p=118, citing: {{harvnb|Plutarch, Antony|loc=44.3}}; {{harvnb|Dio|loc=48.38.3}}; and dismissing {{harvnb|Suetonius, Augustus|loc=24.2}}, which states that Octavian used the punishment regularly}} After this instance in 34, over fifty years elapse before the next under Lucius Apronius {{circa|AD 18–20}} for defeats in Numidia and then another fifty years elapse to Galba's usage during the Year of the Four Emperors against a unit of soldiers who refused to be demoted to naval service.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|p=119, citing {{harvnb|Tactius, Annales|loc=3.21}}; {{harvnb|Suetonius, Galba|loc=12.4}} }}

G. R. Watson notes that "its appeal was to those obsessed with nimio amore antiqui moris" – that is, an excessive love for ancient customs – and notes, "decimation itself, however, was ultimately doomed, for though the army might be prepared to assist in the execution of innocent slaves, professional soldiers could hardly be expected to cooperate in the indiscriminate execution of their own comrades".{{sfn|Watson|1969|p=120}} After the Principate, the punishment also falls into obscurity until late antiquity,{{sfn|Pearson|2019|p=666}} when it may have been used by the emperor Julian during his Persian campaign.{{sfn|Taylor|2022|p=119, citing Ammianus, 24.3.2, which notes only three deaths}} The emperor Macrinus instituted a less harsh centesimatio, the execution of every 100th man.{{Cite book |last=Stephenson |first=Paul |title=Constantine: Roman emperor, Christian victor |date=2010 |isbn=978-1-59020-324-8 |edition=1st |location=New York |oclc=489014421 |page=68 }}

{{cn span |text=The Eastern Roman Emperor Maurice forbade in his Strategikon the decimatio and other brutal punishments. According to him, punishments where the rank and file saw their comrades dying by the hands of their own brothers-in-arms could lead to a collapse of morale. Moreover, it could seriously deplete the manpower of the fighting unit. |date=March 2025}}

{{more citations needed section |date=March 2025}}

The Huguenot garrison of Brouage surrendered to Royalist forces in August 1577 during the French Wars of Religion. When the 800 survivors arrived at La Rochelle the city officials, judging their surrender to have been premature, decimated them.{{Cite book |chapter=Venice: August 1577 |title=Calendar of state papers relating to English affairs in the archives of Venice |volume=7, 1558–1580 |year=1890 |publisher=Her Majesty's Stationery Office |location=London |pages=558–564, Item 683 |chapter-url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/vol7/pp558-564 |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=Randon |editor-last2=Bentinck |editor-first2=G Cavendish |via=British History Online }}

Von Sparr's cuirassier regiment in Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim's corps fled the field during the 1632 Battle of Lützen of the Thirty Years' War. The imperial commander, Wallenstein, appointed a court martial, which directed the execution of the officer in command, Colonel Hagen, together with Lt Col Hofkirchen, ten other officers and five troopers. They were beheaded with the sword, while two men found guilty of looting the baggage were sentenced to a less honourable death, by hanging. The remaining troopers were decimated, one in every ten cavalrymen being hanged; the others were assembled beneath the gallows, beaten, branded and declared outlaws. Their standards were burned by an executioner after the emperor's monogram had been cut from the fabric.{{Cite book |last=Brnardic |first=Vladmir |title=Imperial armies of the Thirty Years' War |volume=2, Cavalry |url={{google books |id=2dqGAQAACAAJ |plainurl=y}} |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-84603-997-3 |page=8}}

{{cn span |text=Similarly, during the Battle of Breitenfeld (1642), near Leipzig, Colonel Madlo's cavalry regiment was the first that fled without striking a blow. This was followed by the massive flight of other cavalry units, an early turning point in the battle. It ended in a decisive victory for the Swedish Army under the command of Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson over an Imperial Army under Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and his deputy Ottavio Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi. |date=March 2025}}

{{cn span |text=Leopold Wilhelm assembled a court-martial in Prague which sentenced the Madlo regiment to exemplary punishment. Six regiments, which had distinguished themselves in the battle, were assembled fully armed, and surrounded Madlo's regiment, which was severely rebuked for its cowardice and misconduct, and ordered to lay down its arms at the feet of General Piccolomini. When they had obeyed this command, their ensigns (flags) were torn in pieces; and the general, having mentioned the causes of their degradation, and erased the regiment from the register of the imperial troops, pronounced the sentence that had been agreed upon in the council of war, condemning the colonel, captains and lieutenants to be beheaded, the ensigns (junior officers) to be hanged, the soldiers to be decimated and the survivors to be driven in disgrace out of the army. |date=March 2025}}

{{cn span |text=Ninety men (chosen by rolling dice) were executed at Rokycany, in western Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic, on December 14, 1642 by Jan Mydlář (junior), the son of Jan Mydlář, the famous executioner from Prague. On the first day of the execution, the regiment's cords{{clarify|date=June 2016}} were broken by the executioner. On the second day, officers were beheaded and selected men hanged on the trees on the road from Rokycany to Litohlavy. Another version says that the soldiers were shot, and their bodies hanged from the trees. Their mass grave is said to be on the Black Mound in Rokycany, which commemorates the decimation to this day. |date=March 2025}}

On September 3, 1866, during the Battle of Curuzu, during the Paraguayan War, the Paraguayan 10th Battalion fled without firing a shot. President Francisco Solano López ordered the decimation of the battalion, which was accordingly formed into line and every tenth man shot.{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=George |url={{google books |id=Tc616IzJK5QC |plainurl=y}} |title=The war in Paraguay: with a historical sketch of the country and its people and notes upon the military engineering of the war |date=1869 |publisher=Longmans, Green, and Company |pages=171–72 }}

In 1914, in France, there was a case in which a company of Tunisian tirailleurs (colonial soldiers) refused an order to attack and was ordered decimated by the divisional commander. This involved the execution of ten men.{{Cite book |last=Fogarty |first=Richard |title=Race and war in France: colonial subjects in the French Army, 1914–1918 |date=2008 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-8824-3 |lccn=2007-049546 |page=35}}

Italian general Luigi Cadorna, when he was commander-in-chief of the Italian Army during the first world war used both decimation and summary executions of stragglers for units that retreated without orders or fled the field of battle. It was also used to punish offences by units when determining the ringleaders was not possible. During the war there were at least five cases of decimation, with about a dozen soldiers killed in each case.{{sfn|Statiev|2012|p=480 n. 18}}{{cite book |first=Huw |last=Strachan |year=2003 |title=The first world war |isbn= |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=London |oclc=52694792 |page= }}{{page needed |date=March 2025}} Most of the men executed by Cadorna's harsh discipline were, however, by the form of the summary executions of individual stragglers.{{Cite book |last=Keegan |first=John |title=The first world war |date=1998 |publisher=Hutchinson |isbn=978-0-09-180178-6 |location=London |pages=375f }} The first well-documented incident was in May 1916, when twelve men (including an officer and three sergeants) were drawn by lot and shot for having been part of a unit that fled when under attack. The commanding officer who undertook the summary executions – which did not have to be reported up the chain of command before being executed – was commended by Cadorna.{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|pp=82–83}} The most famous instance of decimation under Cadorna's command was the killing, in two groups on 16 July 1917, of sixteen and twelve soldiers from the 6th company of the 142nd regiment of the Catanzaro brigade. The first were killed after the brigade rebelled during the night; the following twelve were killed for having fired on other Italian troops. All of the men were selected for death by lot.{{cite web |last1=Guerrini |first1=Irene |last2=Pluviano |first2=Marco |title=Discipline and military justice (Italy) |url=https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/discipline-and-military-justice-italy/#toc_the_decimations |website=International encyclopedia of the first world war |date=2014-10-08 |at=¶ The Decimations }} Guerrini & Pluviano identify at least eight cases of decimation under Cadorna's command.{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|p=92}} After the significant Italian defeat at the Battle of Caporetto in 1917, Cadorna was sacked and the new Italian commander-in-chief immediately ended the practice;{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|p=83}} this harsh discipline, exemplified by decimation, in Italian ranks was regardless ineffective at creating an effective army.{{sfn|Wilcox|2005|p=100. "Although Cadorna's regime succeeded... in keeping reluctant soldiers in line, it could not provide motivation or commitment where these were absent, and most crucially could not create offensive spirit"}}

During the German Revolution of 1918–1919, 29 men from the Volksmarinedivision were executed after 300 men turned up to receive their discharge papers and back pay.{{Cite news |last=Conrad |first=Andreas |date=11 March 2019 |title=Novemberrevolution: Gedenken an Tote der März-Unruhen 1919 in Berlin |language=de |trans-title=November Revolution: Commemoration of those killed in the March 1919 riots in Berlin |work=Tagesspiegel |url=https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/gedenken-an-tote-der-marz-unruhen-1919-in-berlin-6874264.html |access-date=1 January 2024}} The Red Army also engaged in decimation during the Russian Civil War. By May 1920, Leon Trotsky had twice ordered decimation, with the killing of every tenth man in two occasions where units had retreated without orders on the Volga front.{{sfn|Statiev|2012|pp=479–80}} The practice in the Red Army ended after 1920.{{harvnb|Statiev|2012|p=482}}. A story in {{cite book |last=Beevor |first=Antony |title=Stalingrad |location=London |publisher=Viking |year=1998 |page=117 |mode=cs2}}, that an unnamed commander at Stalingrad shot every tenth man while reviewing his soldiers in single file is unsourced and "cannot be taken as a fact". {{harvnb|Statiev|2012|pp=482–83 n. 35}}.

{{cn span |text=Decimation can be also used to punish the enemy. In 1918, during the Finnish Civil War, White troops, after conquering the Red city of Varkaus, summarily executed around 80 captured Reds in what became known as the Lottery of Huruslahti. According to some accounts, the Whites ordered all the captured Reds to assemble in a single row on the ice of Lake Huruslahti, selected every tenth prisoner, and executed him on the spot. The selection was not entirely random though, as some prisoners (primarily Red leaders) were specifically selected for execution and other individuals were intentionally spared. |date=March 2025}}

During the Spanish Civil War, 46 men of the Republican 84th Mixed Brigade were executed by firing squad at Mora de Rubielos on 20 January 1938.{{sfn|Engel|1999|p=113}} The reason for the decimation was due to the brigade's poor performance in the harsh winter combat actions in the later stages of the Battle of Teruel and the soldiers of the brigade being branded as disloyal and untrustworthy.{{sfn|Engel|1999|p=112}}

The term decimation was first used in English to mean a tax of one-tenth (or tithe). Through a process of semantic change starting in the 17th century, the word evolved to refer to any extreme reduction in the number of a population or force, or an overall sense of destruction and ruin, not strictly in the punitive sense or to a reduction by one-tenth. Despite its history, criticism of the broader sense has been noted by some language experts, including Bryan A. Garner, H. W. Fowler, and the Lake Superior State University annual "Banished Words List" in 2008.{{Cite web |date=2011-10-24 |title=The Grammarphobia Blog: Death where is thy sting? |url=https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2011/10/decimate.html |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=Grammarphobia.com |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Zimmer |first=Ben |date=2008-01-03 |title=Should "Decimate" be Annihilated? |url=https://blog.oup.com/2008/01/decimate/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=OUPblog |language=en}}

• Fustuarium
• Lachesis – measured the thread of life with her rod; her Roman equivalent was Decima (the tenth)

{{reflist|20em}}

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{{Capital punishment}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Decimation (Roman Army)}}

Category:10 (number)

Category:Ancient Roman military punishments

Category:Capital punishment

Category:Marcus Licinius Crassus