sometimes called simply DECEMVIRI SACRORUM, were the members of an ecclesiastical collegium, and were elected for life. Their chief duty was to take care of the Sibylline books, and to inspect them on all important occasions by command of the senate. Under the kings the care of the Sibylline books was committed to two men (_duumviri_) of high rank. On the expulsion of the kings, the care of these books was entrusted to the noblest of the patricians, who were exempted from all military and civil duties. Their number was increased about the year 367 B.C. to ten, of whom five were chosen from the patricians and five from the plebeians. Subsequently their number was still further increased to fifteen (_quindecemviri_), probably by Sulla. It was also the duty of the decemviri to celebrate the games of Apollo, and the secular games. DĔCENNĀLĬA or DĔCENNĬA, a festival celebrated with games every ten years by the Roman emperors. This festival owed its origin to the fact that Augustus refused the supreme power when offered to him for his life, and would only consent to accept it for ten years, and when these expired, for another period of ten years, and so on to the end of his life. DĔCĬMĀTĬO, the selection, by lot, of every tenth man for punishment, when any number of soldiers in the Roman army had been guilty of any crime. The remainder usually had barley allowed to them instead of wheat. This punishment appears not to have been inflicted in the early times of the republic. DĒCRĒTUM seems to mean that which is determined in a particular case after examination or consideration. It is sometimes applied to a determination of the consuls, and sometimes to a determination of the senate. A _decretum_ of the senate would seem to differ from a _senatus-consultum_, in the way above indicated: it was limited to the special occasion and circumstances, and this would be true whether the decretum was of a judicial or a legislative character. But this distinction in the use of the two words, as applied to an act of the senate, was, perhaps, not always observed.