In Ancient Rome if a Roman Army was to be disciplined for desertion or mutiny they would be decimated and 1 in 10 soldiers would be killed by the commanding officer. They would use lottery system to choice the ones to be whipped to the point of death and then beheaded. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#cite_n...
True! I just read about the "decimation of Aethelwulf" - the ninth century king of Wessex (current Great Britain) gave away a tenth of his empire in order to secure the kingdom during his pilgrimage to Rome.
Cool! I like reading about that stuff, especially so since I've also been watching the semi-historical fiction of "Vikings". The show is enjoyable even when not historically accurate but it then gets me to read about the similar things that actually happened.
I watched "The Last Kingdom" from BBC (which I recommend) and it made me want to know more about 9th century England. So far the book "Alfred the Great: the man who made England" by Justin Pollard has been fantastic if you're into that kind of thing. It's very well researched and historically accurate but not overly dry, Pollard makes a point of not including too many footnotes in the book as many of the more academically targeted books do.
> The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning "removal of a tenth" - http://www.dictionary.com/browse/decimate
In Ancient Rome if a Roman Army was to be disciplined for desertion or mutiny they would be decimated and 1 in 10 soldiers would be killed by the commanding officer. They would use lottery system to choice the ones to be whipped to the point of death and then beheaded. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#cite_n...