Decimation ( Roman army ) Decimation ( ; " decem " = " ten " ) was a form of military discipline used by senior commanders in the Roman Army to punish units or large groups guilty of capital offences such as mutiny or desertion . The word " decimation " is derived from Latin meaning " removal of a tenth " . The procedure was a pragmatic attempt to balance the need to punish serious offences with the practicalities of dealing with a large group of offenders . Procedure . A cohort selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten ; each group drew lots ( Sortition ) , and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades , often by stoning or clubbing . The remaining soldiers were often given rations of barley instead of wheat for a few days , and required to camp outside the marching camp . Because the punishment fell by lot , all soldiers in the group were eligible for execution , regardless of the individual degree of fault , or rank and distinction , unless rigged to eliminate the mutiny ringleaders . The leadership was usually executed independently of the one in ten deaths of the rank and file . Sources . The earliest documented decimation occurred in 471 BC during the Roman Republic ' s early wars against the Volsci and is recorded by Livy . In an incident where his army had been scattered , consul Appius Claudius Sabinus Inregillensis had the culprits punished for desertion : Centurions , standard - bearers and soldiers who had cast away their weapons were individually scourged and beheaded , while of the remainder , one in ten were chosen by lot and executed . The practice was revived by Crassus in 71 BC during the Third Servile War against Spartacus , and some historical sources attribute part of Crassus ' success to it . The amount of men killed through decimation is not known , but it varies between 1 , 000 ( used on 10 , 000 men ) , or a cohort of around 480 - 500 men , meaning only 48 - 50 were killed . Julius Caesar threatened to decimate the 9th Legion during the war against Pompey , but never did . Polybius gives one of the first descriptions of the practice in the early 3rd century BC : Plutarch describes the process in his life of Antony . After a defeat in Media : Decimation was still being practised during the time of the Roman Empire , although it was very uncommon . Suetonius records that it was used by Emperor Augustus in 17 BC and later by Galba , while Tacitus records that Lucius Apronius used decimation to punish a full cohort of the III Augusta after their defeat by Tacfarinas in AD 20 . G . R . Watson notes that " its appeal was to those obsessed with " " nimio amore antiqui moris " " - - that is , an excessive love for ancient customs - - and notes , " Decimation itself , however , was ultimately doomed , for though the army might be prepared to assist in the execution of innocent slaves , professional soldiers could hardly be expected to cooperate in the indiscriminate execution of their own comrades . " A legend suggests that the Theban Legion was decimated in the third century AD . The Legion had refused , to a man , to accede to an order of the Emperor , and the process was repeated until none were left . They became known as the Martyrs of Agaunum . Byzantine Emperor Maurice forbade in his Strategikon the " decimatio " and other brutal punishments . According to him , punishments where the rank and file see their comrades dying by the hands of their own brothers - in - arms could lead to collapse of morale . Moreover , it could seriously deplete the manpower of the fighting unit . Modern instances of decimation . Italian General Luigi Cadorna allegedly applied decimation to under - performing units during the World War I . In his book " Stalingrad " , Antony Beevor recounts how , during World War II , a Soviet army division commander practiced decimation on deserters by walking down the line of soldiers at attention , and shooting every tenth soldier in the face until his pistol ran out of ammunition . This would be eight or nine men , depending on whether the commander carried his weapon with a loaded chamber or not . Decimation can be also used to punish the enemy . In 1918 , in the Finnish Civil War , the White troops , after conquering the Red city of Varkaus , summarily executed around 80 captured Reds in what became known as the Lottery of Huruslahti . According to some accounts , the Whites ordered all the captured Reds to assemble in a single row on the ice of Lake Huruslahti , selected every tenth prisoner , and executed him on the spot . The selection was not entirely random though , as some prisoners ( primarily Red leaders ) were specifically selected for execution and some good workers were intentionally spared . Current usage of the word . The word " decimation " is often ( counter to historical use ) used to refer to an " extreme " reduction in the number of a population or force , much greater than the one tenth defined by the " deci " ( as in " decimal " ) root . It is frequently used as a synonym for the word " annihilation " ( the OED lists " annihilation " as meaning " to reduce to non - existence , blot out of existence " , ) or for " devastation " , ( to lay waste ) to which it bears a syllabic resemblance .