Last updated on January 25th, 2023 at 01:00 am

Of all of the world’s empires, few have risen from such inauspicious beginnings to such heights as did that of the Romans. For several hundred years following its mythical foundation in 753 BCE, Rome was just one of many towns in Central Italy.

It controlled little more than some farmland in the surrounding countryside. In 390 BCE, a marauding army of Celts that had entered Italy even managed to sack the city of Rome. 

But then, over the next 200 years, Rome began expanding aggressively, first conquering Italy and then becoming the dominant force in the Western Mediterranean after two wars against Carthage in the third century BCE.

The emergence of the Roman legions brought about this change of fortune as the finest fighting force in the Western Mediterranean. 

Unfortunately, part of this martial prowess was based on a rigid discipline that included the brutal practice of decimation of legions and cohorts who showed cowardice on the battlefield, were insubordinate or mutinous, or even threatened desertion. 

What was Decimation?

The Latin of decimation is decimatio. The first part of this, decem, means ten in Latin, which is the key point here.

The practice of decimatio involved legions or cohorts judged guilty of cowardice, mutiny, or desertion, having to draw lots. Every tenth legionary was slain as punishment for their crime. 

A legion comprised approximately 5,000 men, while a cohort comprised 480 men. Generally speaking, these were divided into groups of ten men when a decimation occurred.

So a cohort would be split into 48 groups of ten men each. These would then draw lots, and one man in each group of ten would draw the short straw. Whoever did would meet a vicious end.

Accounts of the practice provided by Roman and Greek historians, such as Livy and Polybius, indicate that the other nine were required to take the unlucky member of their group’s life with clubs or stones. 

The Romans Weren’t the First to Practice Decimation

The Romans, it should be noted, were not the first people of the ancient world to employ harsh military discipline. The Spartans were notoriously cruel to raise the most powerful warriors in the Greek world.

The Macedonians later conquered the entire Greek world and, under Alexander the Great, expanded eastwards as far as India, employing a practice similar to decimation. Alexander is believed to have decimated about 10% of a small army of 6,000 men.