Decimatio: Myth, Discipline, and Death in the Roman Republic

Abstract

Abstract The military punishment of decimatio, the cudgelling by lot of one in ten men in a disgraced unit, often described as a cornerstone of Roman military discipline, was never practised during the third and second centuries BC. The punishment was possibly used as an extraordinary measure a couple of times in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. It soon fell into total desuetude but was cultivated as a rhetorical construct that proclaimed theoretical powers commanders no longer dared effect. It was only revived, or rather reinvented, during the Late Republic, a violent moment that saw the confluence of antiquarian enthusiasm with military dynasts whose unrestrained powers allowed them to manifest what had previously been an aristocratic talking point.