DECEM'VIRI ( Lat., board of ten Men, from derem, ten + rir, man). The most famous body known under this title were the ten persons who were appointed (n.c. 451) as a sort of gislative committee, to draw up a code of laws at Rome. The groundwork on which the decent viri proceeded was the information which had been prey ion sly collected by three commissioners who were sent for that purpose to Greece. On the return of the commissioners, after a year's absence. a violent dispute arose between the patricians and plebeians as to which of the orders should be intrusted with the revision of the laws. The dispute ended in favor of the patricians, and ten patrician lawgivers were consequently appointed, to whom, moreover, the whole govern ment of the State was intrusted during the year for which they were to hold office. The experi ment was eminently successful; the work of legis lotion was carried on with zeal and success, and the State was governed with prudence and mod eration. Their labors not being quite finished, a new body of deceinviri was appointed, only one, the notorious Appius Claudius, belonging to the commission. In their magisterial and
executive capacities, the new deeemviri acted in the most tyrannical manner. In place of the fasces alone being carried before the decenivir who presided for the day, as on the former occa sion, each of the ten was now attended by twelve lictors, who carried not only the rods, but the axe, which was the emblem of sovereign power. Every species of outrage was committed on the persons and families of the plebeians, and when the term of their appointment expired, the deeemviri refused either to resign or to allow successors to be appointed to them. At length the iniquitous decision of Appius Claudius (q.v.) in the matter of Virginia brought affairs to a climax. A popular insurrection broke forth, the deceinviri were driven from their office, and the tribunes and other ordinary magistrates of the Republic were reappointed. The occurrence is the subject of one of the most spirited of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome..