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DECADUCHI.

127

DECEMVIRI.

DECADUCHI (SeKaSoOxoi), the members
of a council of Ten, who succeeded the Thirty
in the supreme power at Athens, b. e. 403.
They were chosen from the ten tribes, one .
from each; but, though opposed to the
Thirty, they sent ambassadors to Sparta to
ask for assistance against Thrasybulus and
the exik-s. They remained masters of Athens
till the party of Thrasybulus obtained possession
of the citv and the democracy was restored.

DECARCHIA or DECADARCHIA (fiesop-
\Ca, SeKaSap^ia), a supreme council established
in many of the Grecian cities by the Lace-
daemonians, who entrusted to it the whole
government of the state under the direction
of a Spartan harmost. It always consisted
of the leading members of the aristocratical
party.

DECASMUS (8e(cao>w), bribery. There
were two actions for bribery at Athens : one,
called Sexatrp-ou ypa^»j, lay against the person
who gave the bribe; and the other, called Suipuiv
or SiopoSo/a'as ypa<p7), against the person who
received it. These actions applied to the
bribery of citizens in the public assemblies
of the people ((rvvSeKa^ew tt)v iKKKi)(jia.v)t of
the Heliaea or any of the courts of justice, of
the 0ovA>), and of the public advocates. Ac-
tions for bribery were under the jurisdiction
of the thesmothetae. The punishment on
conviction of the defendant was death, or
payment of ten times the value of the gift
received, to which the court might add a
further punishment (7rpo<rr[p.7)p.a).

DECATE (Sexem,). [Decumae.]

DECEMPEDA, a pole ten feet long, used
by the agrimensores [Agrimensores] in mea-
suring land. Thus we find that the agrimen-
sores were sometimes called deeempedatores.

DECEMPRIMI. [Senatus.]

DECEMVIRI, or the " ten-men," the name
of various magistrates and functionaries at
Rome, of whom the most important were :—
(1) Decemviri Legibus Scribendis, ten com-
missioners, who were appointed to draw up
a code of laws. They were entrusted with
supreme power in the state, and all the other
magistracies were suspended. They entered
upon their office at the beginning of the year
b. c. 451 ; and they discharged their duties
with diligence, and dispensed justice with
impartiality. Each administered the govern-
ment day by day in succession as during an
interregnum ; and the fasces were only car-
ried before the one who presided for the
day. They drew up a body of laws, distri-
buted into ten sections ; which, after being
approved of by the senate and the comitia,
were engraven on tables of metal, and set up
in the comitium. On the expiration of their
year of office, all parties were so well satisfied

with the manner in which they had discharged
their duties, that it was resolved to continue
the same form of government for another
. year ; more especially as some of the decem-
virs said that their work was not finished.
Ten new decemvirs were accordingly elected,
of whom App. Claudius alone belonged to the
former body. These magistrates framed
several new laws, which were approved of by
the centuries, and engraven on two additional
tables. They acted, however, in a most
tyrannical manner. Each was attended by
twelve lictors, who carried not the rods only,
but the axes, the emblem of sovereignty.
They made common cause with the patrician
party, and committed all kinds of outrages
upon the persons and property of the ple-
beians and their families. When their year
of office expired they refused to resign or to
appoint successors. At length, the unjust
decision of App. Claudius, in the case of Vir-
ginia, which led her father to kill her with his
own hands to save her from prostitution, occa-
sioned an insurrection of the people. The decem-
virs were in consequence obliged to resign
their office, b.c. 449 ; after which the usual ma-
gistracies were re-established. The ten tables
of the former, and the two tables of the latter
decemvirs, form together the laws of the
Twelve Tables, which were the groundwork
of the Roman laws. This, the first attempt
to make a code, remained also the only at-
tempt for near one thousand years, until the
legislation of Justinian.—(2) Decemviri Li-
tibvs or Stlitibus Jvdicandis, were magis-
trates forming a court of justice, which took
cognizance of civil cases. The history as well
as the peculiar j urisdietion of this court dur-
ing the time of the republic is involved in
inextricable obscurity. In the time of Cicero
it still existed, and the proceedings in it took
place in the ancient form of the sacramentum.
Augustus transferred to these decemvirs the
presidencj7 in the courts of the ccntumviri.
During the empire, this court had jurisdic-
tion in capital matters, which is expressly
stated in regard to the decemvirs.—(3) De-
cemviri SaCris Facivndis, sometimes called
simply Decemviri Sacrorum, were the mem-
bers of an ecclesiastical collegium, and were
elected for life. Their chief duty was to take
care of the Sibylline books, and to inspect
them on all important occasions by command
of the senate. Under the kings the care of
the Sibylline books was committed to two
men (duumviri) of high rank. On the expul-
sion of the kings, the care of these books was
entrusted to the noblest of the patricians, who
were exempted from all military and civil
duties. Their number was increased about
the year 367 b.c. to ten, of whom five were
 
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