Decimation

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The decimation or decimation ( Latin decimatio , decem = ten ) referred to a military punishment in the Roman army for collective offenses such as mutiny or cowardice before the enemy. One of ten men for punishment (mostly execution) was drawn by lot in the affected unit. The punishment was also applied to officers. There are reports of the use of punishment in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period .

The vicesimatio or the centesimatio , in which every 20th or every 100th man was drawn by lot , were a lessening of the punishment .

In today's parlance, the term decimation is mostly used differently, for example in the sense of "reducing a group of people by killing or eliminating part of their members". In general, it does not depend on the punitive intention, nor does the characteristic of killing have to be present, for example a state can decimate a political resistance movement by arresting many of its members . The word is also used in a figurative sense for a great reduction in a number of things or individuals.

application

Decimation was only used in the army of the Roman Empire as a punitive measure when the collective misconduct of an entire military unit was present. Since no perpetrator could be identified in these cases, the guilt was atoned for and discipline was restored.

It was pronounced when a mutiny or riot had broken out or threatened to break out in a unit . Even if, in the opinion of the Commander in Chief, a battle was lost due to disobedience or cowardice , it was fought .

After all soldiers of the guilty unit had lined up, a tenth of the soldiers were determined by lot. This was done by one brown and nine white broad beans that were placed in the hands of the soldiers. If it was brown, the warrior concerned had to be killed by his own comrades with a sword or a beating. This extremely harsh punishment was rarely used in the history of the Roman Empire.

Reports on the decimation

The earliest mention of the decimation comes from Titus Livius for the year 471 BC. Decimation was widely used during the Roman Civil Wars and under the emperors .

The following episode has come down to us from Caesar : After the mutiny among the discontented troops in Placentia in northern Italy , Caesar is said to have threatened the rebellious units of his 9th Legion to have the decimation carried out and to send the others home as unfit. He did this to quell the mutiny, but at the same time not to show how much he was dependent on every man. When the soldiers asked to be allowed to remain on duty, Caesar gave in after a long period of reluctance, but demanded that the 120 ringleaders be handed over to him. Of these, he had every tenth lot drawn and executed .

In Plutarch's parallel biography of Marcus Antonius , the decimation is discussed in the context of the Parthian campaign in 36 BC. Mentioned. During the brief siege of the Median capital Phraaspa , two Roman cohorts are said to have fled from smaller units of the Parthian cavalry troops. This enraged Antonius so much that he had every tenth man in the relevant department killed by drawing lots. From that point on, he only allowed the rest of those responsible to receive barley instead of the usual wheat rations.

During the imperial era , decimation seems to have been used less and less in the Roman army; presumably this has to do with the fact that the position of the soldiers became more and more powerful. The report by the eyewitness Ammianus Marcellinus about a decimation ordered by Emperor Julian the Apostate in AD 363 during his campaign against the Sassanids is one of the latest examples that have been reliably documented . The army master Flavius Stilicho is said to have threatened the decimation of rebellious troops near Bologna in 408 AD, but waived the measure after the soldiers pleaded for mercy.

Even after the end of antiquity , there were occasional decimations. Reports of the application of the penalty are known from Charlemagne and from the Thirty Years War . Just like the Austrians near Leipzig in 1642 , the French Marshal Créquy had rebellious troops decimated in the Dutch War near Trier.

General Blücher is said to have given the order for the decimation of defiant Saxon battalions , but the order was not carried out. There are even reports from the First World War that prove the use of decimation after defeat or in the case of “cowardice before the enemy”. This was the case with Italian troops in the Isonzo battles . Stanley Kubrick filmed a fictional such situation in Roads to Fame with Kirk Douglas in the lead role.

Adolf Hitler said in his justification speech after the Röhm Putsch in 1934 : "Mutinous divisions have at all times been called to order by decimation."

In his book “ Stalingrad ”, the British historian Antony Beevor reports on the execution of the decimation by a Soviet commander.

literature

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b decimation . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 4, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 923.
  2. ^ William Smith (Ed.): A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities , London 1875, [1]
  3. ↑ Ab urbe condita 2,59,11: [...] cetera multitudo sorte decimus quisque ad supplicium lecti
  4. ^ Christian Meier: Caesar , Berlin 1982, pp. 460f. The television program Rome - Caesar's Game for Power falsely portrays how Caesar decimates the mutinous legion.
  5. ^ Plutarch: Demetrius and Antony & Pyrrhus and Caius Marius . In: Bernadotte Perrin (Ed.): Plutarch's Lives . tape 9 . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1959, pp. 227 .
  6. ↑ Amm. 24.3.2.
  7. ↑ Zos. 5.31.
  8. ↑ http://www.mediathek.at/erster-weltkrieg/ausgabe-4/kriegsgeschichte/die-italienfront/
  9. ^ Antony Beevor: Stalingrad . Goldmann Verlag 2001, ISBN 3-442-15101-5 (page 117)

Web links

Wiktionary: decimation  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations