The Devotio of Decius Mus: Roman Sacrifice as Military Theology
A Roman consul rode into an enemy army in 340 BC in order to be killed, having formally dedicated himself and the enemy to the gods of the underworld. The ritual was called devotio, and the account in Livy gives the formula: the general, wearing a toga drawn over his head, standing on a spear, repeating after a priest a prayer offering himself and the enemy's legions to Tellus and the Manes. Publius Decius Mus performed it at the battle of Veseris against the Latins, according to Livy, after both consuls had dreamed on the same night that the side whose commander fell would win. The Romans and the Latins were fighting a war that was unusually difficult because both armies were organised and armed identically — the Latins had been Roman allies for generations and drilled the same way, so neither side could surprise the other with anything. When his own left began to give way, Decius called the priest, made the dedication, and rode alone into the Latin line. The Romans won. His son is recorded as doing the same thing at Sentinum in 295 BC against the Gauls and Samnites, and his grandson is said to have attempted it against Pyrrhus in 279 BC. Whether any of this happened is unanswerable, and the repetition across three generations suggests a family tradition polished for the annalists. What the story shows is not the ritual but what Romans of the late Republic believed their ancestors had been willing to do. The Latin war it belongs to ended the following year with the dissolution of the Latin League and a settlement of extraordinary intelligence: Rome annexed some communities, gave others citizenship without the vote, and left others as allies, which is the graded system it used to absorb Italy over the following century.
- Year: 340 BCE
- Category: Military
