DĔCŬMAE

(sc. partes ) formed a portion of the vectigalia of the Romans, and were paid by subjects whose territory, either by conquest or deditio , had become the property of the state ( ager public us ). They consisted, as the name denotes, of a tithe or tenth of the produce of the soil, levied upon the cultivators ( aratores ) or occupiers ( po e ores ) of the lands, which, from being subject to this payment, were called agri decuman i . The tax of a tenth was, however, generally paid by corn lands: plantations and vineyards, as requiring no seed and le labour, paid a fifth of the produce. A similar system existed in Greece also. Peisistratus, for instance, imposed a tax of a tenth on the lands of the A then i ans, which the Peisistratidae lowered to a twentieth. At the time of the Persian war the confederate Greeks made a vow, by which all the states who had surrendered themselves to the enemy were subjected to the payment of tithes for the use of the god at Delphi. The tithes of the public lands belonging to Athens were farmed out as at Rome to contractors, called δεκατώναι : the term δεκατηλόγοι was applied to the collectors; but the callings were, as we might suppose, often united in the same person. The title δεκατευταί is applied to both. A δεκάτη , or tenth of a different kind, was the arbitrary exaction imposed by the A then i ans ( B.C. 410) on the cargoes of all ships sailing into or out of the Pontus. They lost it by the battle of A ego spot am i ( B.C. 405); but it was re-established by Thrasybulus about B.C. 391. The tithe was let out to farm.