AGRI DECUMA´TES
AGRI DECUMA´TES or
DECUMA´NI (from
decuma, tithe), tithe lands, a name given by the Romans to the country E. of the Rhine and N. of the Danube, which they took possession of on the withdrawal of the Germans to the E., and which they gave to the immigrating Gauls and subject Germans, and subsequently to their own veterans, on the payment of a tenth of the produce. Towards the end of the first or the beginning of the second century after Christ, the country became part of the adjoining Roman province of Rhaetia, and was thus incorporated with the empire. (Tacit.
Germ. 29.) Its boundary towards the free part of Germany was protected partly by a wall (from Ratisbon to Lorch), and partly by a mound (from Lorch to the Rhine, in the neighbourhood of Cologne) and Roman garrisons.
The protection of those districts against the ever renewed attacks of the Germans required a considerable military force, and this gave rise to a number of towns and military roads, of which many traces still exist.
But still the Romans were unable to maintain themselves, and the part which was lost first seems to have been the country about the river Maine and Mount Taunus.
The southern portion was probably lost soon after the death of the emperor Probus (A.D 283), when the Alemanni took possession of it.
The latest of the Roman inscriptions found in that country belongs to the reign of Gallienus (A.D. 260--268). (Comp. Leichtlen,
Schwaben unter den Römern, Freiburg, 1825, 8vo.)
The towns in the Decumates Agri were Ambiatinus vicus, ALISUM, Divitia, Gesonia, Victoria, Biberna, Aquae Mattiacae, Munimentum Trajani, Artaunum, Triburium, Bragodurum or Bragodunum, Budoris, Carithni, and others. Comp.
RHAETIA [
L.S]
