Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T22:12:44.041Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2022

Michael J. Taylor Open the ORCID record for Michael J. Taylor [Opens in a new window]
Michael J. Taylor*
Affiliation:
University at Albany, SUNY
*
Email: mjtaylor@albany.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Keywords

decimationdisciplinepunishmentdefeatRoman armyRepublican period
Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 56 , 2022 , pp. 105 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brice, L. (2020a), ‘Commanders’ Responses to Mutinies in the Roman Army’, in Gatzke, A. F., Brice, L. and Trundle, M. (eds.), People and Institutions in the Roman Empire: Essays in Memory of Garrett G. Fagan. Leiden, 44–67.Google Scholar
Brice, L. (2020b), ‘SPQR Snafu’, in Armstrong, J. and Fronda, M. P. (eds.), Romans at War. London and New York, 247–66.Google Scholar
Brice, L. (2020c), ‘Indiscipline in the Roman Army of the Late Republic and Principate’, in Brice, L. (ed.), New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare. Hoboken, NJ, 113–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, B. (1987), ‘Teach Yourself How to Be a General’, JRS 77, 13–29.Google Scholar
Carlsen, J. (2008), ‘Cn. Domitius Calvinus: a Noble Caesarian’, Latomus 67, 72–81.Google Scholar
Champion, C. (2004), Cultural Politics in Polybius’ Histories. Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrissanthos, S. G. (2001), ‘Caesar and the Mutiny of 47 BC’, JRS 91, 63–75.Google Scholar
Clark, J. (2014), Triumph in Defeat. Military Loss and the Roman Republic. Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drogula, F. K. (2007), ‘Imperium, Potestas, and the Pomerium in the Roman Republic’, Historia 56, 419–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, A. (2019), ‘Reconsidering the Sulla Myth’, in Thein, A. and Eckert, A. (eds.), Sulla: Politics and Reception. Berlin, 159–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckstein, A. (2005), ‘Bellicosity and Anarchy: Soldiers, Warriors and Combat in Antiquity’, International History Review 27, 481–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erskine, A. (2013), ‘How to Rule the World: Polybius Book 6 Reconsidered’, in Gibson, B. and Harrison, T. (eds.), Polybius and his World: Essays in Memory of F. W. Walbank. Oxford, 231–46.Google Scholar
Evans, R. (2016), ‘Pompey's Three Consulships: The End of Electoral Competition in the Late Roman Republic?’, AClass 59, 80–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flaig, E. (2003), Ritualisierte Politik. Zeichen, Gesten und Herrschaft im Alten Rom. Göttingen.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, C. (2015–2016), ‘Decimation in the Roman Republic’, CJ 111, 141–64.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, G. (2000), Evocatio Deorum: Historical and Mythological Interpretations of Ritualised Conquest in the Expansion of Ancient Rome. Uppsala.Google Scholar
Hölkeskamp, K.-J. (2010), Reconstructing the Roman Republic. Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jehne, M. (2000), ‘Jovialität und Freiheit. Zur Institutionalität der Beziehungen zwischen Ober- und Unterschichten in der römischen Republik’, in Linke, B. and Stemmler, M. (eds.), Untersuchungen zu den Formen der Identitätsstiftung und Stabilisierung in der römischen Republik. Stuttgart, 207–35.Google Scholar
Kiesling, E. (2006), ‘Corporal Punishment in the Greek Phalanx and Roman Legion: Modern Images and Ancient Realities’, Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 32, 225–46.Google Scholar
Lintott, A. (1972), ‘Provocatio: From the Struggle of the Orders to the Principate’, ANRW 1.2, 226–67.Google Scholar
Lintott, A. (1999), Violence in Republican Rome. Oxford.Google Scholar
Machado, D. (2021), ‘Deconstructing Disciplina: Disentangling Ancient and Modern Ideologies of Military Discipline’, AJPh 142, 387–424.Google Scholar
MacRae, D. (2018), ‘Diligentissumus investigator antiquitatis? “Antiquarianism” and Historical Evidence between Republican Rome and the Early Modern Republic of Letters’, in Sandberg, K. and Smith, C. (eds.), Omnium Annalium Monumenta: Historical Writing and Historical Evidence in Republican Rome. Leiden, 137–56.Google Scholar
Martin, J. (1970), ‘Die Provokation in der klassischen und späten Republik’, Hermes 98, 72–96.Google Scholar
Messer, W. (1920), ‘Mutiny in the Roman Army: The Republic’, CPh 15, 158–75.Google Scholar
Millar, F. (1984), ‘The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic’, JRS 74, 1–19.Google Scholar
Moatti, C. (1991), ‘La crise de la tradition à la fin de la République romaine à travers la littérature juridique et la science des antiquaires’, in Pani, M. (ed.), Continuità e trasformazioni fra repubblica e principato: istituzioni, politica, società: atti dell'Incontro di studi, Bari 27–28 gennaio 1989. Bari, 31–45.Google Scholar
Momigliano, A. (1950), ‘Ancient History and the Antiquarian’, JWI 13, 285–315.Google Scholar
Morgan, M. G. (2003), ‘Galba, the Massacre of the Marines and the Formation of Legion I Adiutrix’, Athenaeum 91, 489–516.Google Scholar
Nicolet, C. (1980), The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Paton, W. R. (1923), Polybius: The Histories. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Pearson, E. (2019), ‘Decimation and Unit Cohesion: Why Were Roman Legionaries Willing to Perform Decimation?’, Journal of Military History 83, 655–88.Google Scholar
Perrin, B. (1918), The Parallel Lives of Plutarch, Vol. 6. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Pickford, K. (2005), ‘The Cruelty of Roman Military Punishments: Decimation in Practice’, AH 35, 123–36.Google Scholar
Phang, S. (2008), Roman Military Service: Ideologies of Discipline in the Late Republic and Early Principate. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rafferty, D. (2021), ‘Rural Voters in Roman Elections’, TAPhA 151, 127–53.Google Scholar
Smith, C. (2019), ‘Varro and the Contours of Roman Antiquarianism’, Latomus 77, 1090–118.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. J. (2018), ‘The Election of Centurions During the Republican Period’, AncSoc 48, 147–67.Google Scholar
Turner, A. (2007), ‘Frontinus and Domitian: Laus Principis in the Strategemata‘, HSCPh 103, 423–49.Google Scholar
Vervaet, F. (2014), ‘Crassus’ Command in the War against Spartacus (73–71 BCE): His Official Position, Forces and Political Spoils’, Klio 96, 607–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziolkowski, A. (1993), ‘Urbs direpta, or How the Romans Sacked Cities’, in Rich, J. and Shipley, G. (eds.), War and Society in the Roman World. London, 69–91.Google Scholar