Death By Decimation

(From the #WeirdDarkness episode, “The Alien Abduction of Lynda Jones”: https://weirddarkness.com/alienabductionoflindajones/)

Perhaps of all ancient armies, the Romans were the most feared. Roman generals would stop at nothing to keep their men in order, reserving one of the worst forms of punishment, decimation, for disobedience.

The Roman army made limited but wise use of decimation. This usually required the disobedient legion to be divided into groups of ten, with each soldier drawing lots. The soldier who drew the shortest straw would lose his life at the hands of the other nine members.

While this form of military punishment may seem especially barbaric, it didn’t disappear with the fall of Rome. Decimation, in one form or another, actually continued until the 20th century.

According to Ancient Origins, decimation is a word that means the “removal of a tenth” in Latin. This is pretty much the gist of this brutal punishment.

The Greek historian Polybius described it around 150 B.C.; usually, the punishment was reserved for soldiers who had deserted their posts during battle. The offending unit would have to draw lots, and one poor randomly selected soldier would be bludgeoned to death by his comrades.

Polybius wrote: “Obtaining some, he then proceeds to punish them and figures many times the sum selected as an example of cowardice—In this way they are made into fine examples before all.” The punishment was carried out with one soldier bearing a heavy implement, striking those below without mercy.

The men who survived faced further punishment after having to kill their own comrades. They were exiled from the protection of the camp for days, with nothing to eat but barley instead of wheat, as Polybius writes.

It was not employed as often as some claim, but more than one Roman general or military commander used it.

The first recorded instance of decimation occurred in 471 B.C. A few years later, the Roman historian Livy described how Appius Claudius Sabinus was disgusted with his men after they were horrifically defeated by the Volsci. He executed those who returned bearing arms or standards, as well as the centurions guilty of leaving their posts, and then selected every tenth soldier from the rest. Frontinus, the ancient Roman senator and writer, suggests they were clubbed to death.

Fewer sources are available for specific dates and details of other decimations. Around 315 B.C., the military hero Fabius Rullianus executed all the soldiers from two defeated legions by beheading them for having previously been enemies. Similarly, an otherwise unknown general, Aquilius, decimated centuries that had retreated in front of the enemy by rotating among the groups and choosing one man out of every twenty to reignite fearsome losses.

Since the turn of the millennium, decimation has progressed only slowly. In 35 B.C., Mark Antony, following his defeat by the Parthians, used decimation on his troops. Over two hundred years later, in 286 A.D., Emperor Maximian is said to have ordered an entire Christian legion to be subjected to decimation every day until there were no men left, as they were being bullied into fighting their fellow Christians.

All in all, decimation was still a relatively rare, if nightmarish, punishment for the Roman Empire. As Polybius writes, the very prospect horrified the soldiers. The Roman Empire existed until 476 A.D., and decimation did not die with it. This form of punishment remained in use for several more centuries. After the fall of the Roman Empire, decimation continued to be applied, albeit sporadically. After several battles from 1618 to 1648, during the Thirty Years’ War, it was practiced on the winners. During the years 1864-1870, paratroopers were decimated, and in World War I, soldiers were sometimes subjected to decimation by their comrades.

In addition, according to Ancient Origins, in 1917, during World War I, Italian General Luigi Cadorna allegedly decimated the 141st Catanzaro Infantry Brigade after the soldiers mutinied. About 750 people died in total. In the same year, French military leaders ordered the decimation of the mixed Algerian infantry regiment for 2,000 soldiers who did not dare to attack the Germans. Four years later, the Finns used decimation to execute communist rebels captured during the turn of 1918 to 1919.

Thus, decimation, an ancient form of punishment, retained its vitality. The Romans used it rarely, but by that time it had already acquired a terrible reputation. Soldiers who had to fight in the Samnite Wars, the Thirty Years’ War, and World War I were deathly afraid of being shot by their comrades, who chose their victims by lot.

As Polybius explained: “The menaced danger requires all to strive equally, so that since no one knows on whom the lot will fall, and since the public disgrace of a man trying for barley rations befalls them each alike, this is what most brings spirit into being fearful but also effective.”

(“Death By Decimation” source: Kaleena Fraga, AllThatsInteresting.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/ycku39yd | Photo: public domain)