Decimation after Mummius’s Defeat Restores Discipline

Crassus’s early deployments ran into an old Roman problem: a bold subordinate. Legate Gaius Mummius, told to shadow the enemy, instead attacked and was beaten. Crassus responded in a way meant to echo across the ranks and the Apennines: decimation [10][4]. Plutarch writes that after assembling the guilty units, Crassus “put to death one from each decade,” reviving an antique terror to cauterize disobedience [4]. The scene along the Via Appia’s camp was ritualized dread—the drawing of lots, the pleading, then the blunt sounds of execution. Scarlet standards stood motionless in a wind that seemed to hold its breath. The punishment worked as intended. Drills near Capua and Beneventum took on a harder edge. Officers enforced formation under pressure; soldiers kept ranks when skirmishers tried to pull them into ambushes near Nola and Consentia. The legions’ sound shifted from brittle bravado to disciplined cadence. Crassus paired fear with activity. He pressed Spartacus south toward Bruttium, using columns moving along parallel roads to prevent the rebels from doubling back toward Capua and the Via Appia. Scouts reported crossings over the Sila plateau’s streams; supply trains clicked and creaked past Thurii toward staging areas. Decimation did not guarantee victory in any single clash. But it restored a precondition of Roman success: obedience under stress. That change would matter most when spades came out and the earth itself became a weapon.