Chapter 10

(R. H. L.)

DECADE(from Gr.δέκα, ten), a group or series containing ten members, particularly a period of ten years. In the new calendar made at the time of the French Revolution in 1793, a decade of ten days took the place of the week. The word is also used of the divisions containing ten books or parts into which the history of Livy was divided.

DECAEN, CHARLES MATHIEU ISIDORE,Count(1769-1832), French soldier, was born at Caen on the 13th of April 1769. He was educated for the bar, but soon showed a strong preference for the military career, in which he quickly made his way during the wars of the French Revolution under Kléber, Marceau and Jourdan, in the Rhenish campaigns. In 1799 he became general of division, and contributed to the success of the famous attack by General Richepanse on the Austrian flank and rear at Hohenlinden (December 1800). Becoming known for his Anglophobe tendencies, he was selected by Napoleon early in the year 1802 for the command of the French possessions in the East Indies. The secret instructions issued to him bade him prepare the way, so that in due course (September 1804 was hinted at as the suitable time) everything might be ready for an attack on the British power in India. Napoleon held out to him the hope of acquiring lasting glory in that enterprise. Decaen set sail with Admiral Linois early in March 1803 with a small expeditionary force, touched at the Cape of Good Hope (then in Dutch hands), and noted the condition of the fortifications there. On arriving at Pondicherry he found matters in a very critical condition. Though the outbreak of war in Europe had not yet been heard of, the hostile preparations adopted by the Marquis Wellesley caused Decaen to withdraw promptly to the Isle of France (Mauritius), where, during eight years, he sought to harass British trade and prepare for plans of alliance with the Mahratta princes of India. They all came to naught. Linois was captured by a British squadron, and ultimately, in 1811, Mauritius itself fell to the Union Jack. Returning to France on honourable terms, Decaen received the command of the French troops in Catalonia. The rest of his career calls for no special mention. He died of the cholera in 1832.

See M. L. E. Gautier,Biographie du général Decaen(Caen, 1850).

(J. Hl. R.)

DECALOGUE(in patristic Gr.ἡ δεκάλογος,sc.βἰβλοςorνομοθεσία), another name for the biblicalTen Commandments, in Hebrew theTen Words(Deut. iv. 13, x. 4; Ex. xxxiv. 28), written by God on the two tables of stone (Ex. xxiv. 12, xxxii. 16), the so-calledTables of the Revelation(E.V. “tables of testimony,” Ex. xxxiv. 29), orTables of the Covenant(Deut. ix. 9, 11, 15). These tables were broken by Moses (Ex. xxxii. 19), and two new ones were hewn (xxxiv. 1), and upon them were written the words of the covenant by Moses (xxxiv. 27 sqq.) or, according to another view, by God himself (Deut. iv. 13, ix. 10). They were deposited in the Ark (Ex. xxv. 21; 1 Kings viii. 9). In Deuteronomy the inscription on these tables, which is briefly called the covenant (iv. 13), is expressly identified with the words spoken by Jehovah (Yahweh) out of the midst of the fire at Mt. Sinai or Horeb (according to the Deuteronomic tradition), in the ears of the whole people on the “day of the assembly,” and rehearsed in v. 6-21. In the narrative of Exodus the relation of the “ten words” of xxxiv. to the words spoken from Sinai, xx. 2-17, is not so clearly indicated, and it is generally agreed that the Pentateuch presents divergent and irreconcilable views of the Sinaitic covenant.

As regards the Decalogue, as usually understood, and embodied in the parallel passages in Ex. xx. and Deut. v., certain preliminary points of detail have to be noticed. The variations in the parallel texts are partly verbal, partly stylistic (e.g.“Remember the Sabbath day,” Ex.; but “observe,” &c., Deut.), and partly consist of amplifications or divergent explanations. Thus the reason assigned for the institution of the Sabbath in Exodus is drawn from the creation, and agrees with Gen. ii. 3. In Deuteronomy the command is based on the duty of humanity to servants and the memory of Egyptian bondage. Again, in the tenth commandment, as given in Exodus, “house” means house and household, including the wife and all the particulars which are enumerated in ver. 17. In Deuteronomy, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,” comes first, and “house” following in association with field is to be taken in the literal restricted sense, and another verb (“thou shalt not desire”) is used.

The construction of the second commandment in the Hebrew text is disputed, but the most natural sense seems to be, “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image; (and) to no visible shape in heaven, &c., shalt thou bow down, &c.” The third commandment might be rendered, “Thou shalt not utter the name of the Lord thy God vainly,” but it is possible that the meaning is that Yahweh’s name is not to be used for purposes of sorcery.

The order of the commandments relating to murder, adultery and stealing varies in the Vatican text of the Septuagint, viz. adultery, stealing, murder, in Ex.; adultery, murder, stealing, in Deut. The latter is supported by several passages in the New Testament (Rom. xiii. 9; Mark x. 19, A.V.; Luke xviii. 20; contrast Matt. xix. 18), and by the “Nash Papyrus.”1It may be added that the double system of accentuation of the Decalogue in the Hebrew Bible seems to preserve traces of the ancient uncertainty concerning the numeration.

Divisions of the Decalogue.—The division current in England and Scotland, and generally among the Reformed (Calvinistic) churches and in the Orthodox Eastern Church, is known as the Philonic division (Philo,de Decalogo, §12). It is sometimes called by the name of Origen, who adopts it in hisHomilies on Exodus. On this scheme the preface, Ex. xx. 2, has been usually taken as part of the first commandment. The Church of Rome and the Lutherans adopt the Augustinian division (Aug.,Quaest. super Exod., lxxi.), combining into one the first and second commandments of Philo, and splitting his tenth commandment into two. To gain a clear distinction between the ninth and tenth commandments on this scheme it has usually been felt to be necessary to follow the Deuteronomic text, and make the ninth commandment, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.2As few scholars will now claim priority for the text of Deuteronomy, this division may be viewed as exploded. But there is a third scheme (the Talmudic) still current among the Jews, and not unknown to early Christian writers, which is still a rival of the Philonic view, though less satisfactory. Here the preface, Ex. xx. 2, is taken as the first “word,” and the second embraces verses 3-6.

See further Nestle,Expository Times(1897), p. 427. The decision between Philo and the Talmud must turn on two questions. Can we take the preface as a separate “word”? And can we regard the prohibition of polytheism and the prohibition of idolatry as one commandment? Now, though the Hebrew certainly speaks of ten “words,” not of ten “precepts,” it is most unlikely that the first word can be different in character from those that follow. But the statement “I am the Lord thy God” is either no precept at all, or only enjoins by implication what is expressly commanded in thewords “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Thus to take the preface as a distinct word is not reasonable unless there are cogent grounds for uniting the commandments against polytheism and idolatry. But that is far from being the case. The first precept of the Philonic scheme enjoins monolatry, the second expresses God’s spiritual and transcendental nature. Accordingly Kuenen does not deny that the prohibition of images contains an element additional to the precept of monolatry, but, following De Goeje, regards the words from “thou shalt not make unto thyself” down to “the waters under the earth” as a later insertion in the original Decalogue. Unless this can be made out, the Philonic scheme is clearly best, and as such it is now accepted by most scholars.

How were the ten words disposed on the two tables? The natural arrangement (which is assumed by Philo and Josephus) would be five and five. And this, as Philo recognized, is a division appropriate to the sense of the precepts; for antiquity did not look on piety towards parents as a mere precept of probity, part of one’s duty towards one’s neighbour. The authority of parents and rulers is viewed in the Old Testament as a delegated divine authority, and the violation of it is akin to blasphemy (cf. Ex. xxi. 17 and Lev. xx. 9 with Lev. xxiv. 15, 16, and note the formula of treason, 1 Kings xxi. 13).

We have thus five precepts of piety on the first table, and five of probity, in negative form, on the second, an arrangement which is accepted by the best recent writers. But the current view of the Western Church since Augustine has been that the precept to honour parents heads the second table. The only argument of weight in favour of this view is that it makes the amount of writing on the two tables less unequal, while we know that the second table as well as the first was written on both sides (Ex. xxxii. 15). But we shall presently see that there may be another way out of this difficulty.

Date.—It is much disputed what the original compass of the Decalogue was. Did the whole text of Ex. xx. 2-17 stand on the tables of stone? The answer to this question must start from the reason annexed to the fourth commandment, which is different in Deuteronomy. But the express words “and he added no more,” in Deut. v. 22, show that there is no conscious omission by the Deuteronomic speaker of part of the original Decalogue, which cannot therefore have included the reason annexed in Exodus. On the other hand the reason annexed in Deuteronomy is rather a parenetic addition than an original element dropped in Exodus. Thus the original fourth commandment was simply “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”3When this is granted it must appear not improbable that the elucidations of other commandments may not have stood on the tables, and that Nos. 6-9 have survived in their original form. Thus in the second commandment, “Thou shalt not bow down to any visible form,” &c., is a sort of explanatory addition to the precept “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.” And so the promise attached to the fifth commandment was probably not on the tables, and the tenth commandment may have simply been, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house,” which includes all that is expressed in the following clauses. Such a view gets over the difficulty arising from the unequal length of the two halves of the Decalogue.

It is quite another question whether there is any idea in the Decalogue which can be as old as Moses. It is urged by many critics that Moses cannot have prohibited the worship of Yahweh by images; for the subsequent history shows us a descendant of Moses as priest in the idolatrous sanctuary of Dan. There were teraphim in David’s house, and the worship of Yahweh under the image of a calf was the state religion of the kingdom of Ephraim. Even Moses himself is said to have made a brazen serpent which, down to Hezekiah’s time, continued to be worshipped at Jerusalem. It is argued from these facts that image-worship went on unchallenged, and that this would not have been possible had Moses forbidden it. The argument is supported by others of great cogency. Although the literary problems of the chapters which narrate the law-giving on Mt. Sinai are extremely intricate, it is generally agreed that Ex. xx. cannot be ascribed to the oldest source, and if, in accordance with many critics, this chapter is ascribed to the Elohist or Ephraimite school, its incorporation can scarcely be older than the middle of the 8th century, and is probably later. With this, the condemnation of adultery in Gen. xx. 1-17 (contrast xii. 10-20, xxvi. 6-11) is in harmony, and the prohibition of the worship of the heavenly bodies is aimed at a form of idolatry which is frequently alluded to in the times of the later kings. The lofty ethics (e.g.tenth commandment) is in itself nosoundcriterion, whilst the external form of the laws, though characteristic of later codes, need not be taken as evidence of importance. But the general result of a study of the Decalogue as a whole, in connexion with Israelite political history and religion, strongly supports, in fact demands, a post-Mosaic origin, and modern criticism is chiefly divided only as to the approximate date to which it is to be ascribed. The time of Manasseh (cf. especially its contact with Micah vi. 6-8) has found many adherents, but an earlier period, about 750B.C.(time of Amos and Hosea), is often held to satisfy the main conditions; the former, however, is probably nearer the mark.

The Decalogue of Exodus xxxiv.—In the book of Exodus the words written on the tables of stone are nowhere expressly identified with the ten commandments of chap. xx. In xxv. 16, xxxi. 18, xxxii. 15, we simply read of “the testimony” inscribed on the tables, and it seems to be assumed that its contents must be already known to the reader. The expression “ten words” first occurs in xxxiv. 28, in a passage which relates the restoration of the tables after they had been broken. But these “ten words” are called “the words of the covenant,” and so can hardly be different from the words mentioned in the preceding verse as those in accordance wherewith the covenant was made with Israel. And again, the words of ver. 27 are necessarily the commandments which immediately precede in vv. 12-26. Accordingly many recent critics have sought to show that Ex. xxxiv. 12-26 contains just ten precepts forming a second decalogue.4

These consist not of precepts of social morality, but of several laws of religious observance closely corresponding to the religious and ritual precepts of Ex. xxi.-xxiii. The number ten is not clearly made out, and the individual precepts are somewhat variously assigned. They prohibit (1) the worship of other gods, (2) the making of molten images; they ordain (3) the observance of the feast of unleavened bread, (4) the feast of weeks, (5) the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, and (6) the seventh-day rest; to Yahweh belong (7) the firstlings, and (8) the first-fruits of the land; they forbid also (9) the offering of the blood of sacrifice with leaven, (10) the leaving-over of the fat of a feast until the morning, and (11) the seething of a kid in its mother’s milk. This scheme ignores the command to appear thrice in the year before Yahweh which recapitulates Nos. 3-5, and the decade is obtained by omitting No. 6, which some hold to be out of place. Others include “none shall appear before me empty-handed” (xxxiv. 20), and unite Nos. 4-5, 9 and 10. C. F. Kent (Beginnings of Heb. Hist.pp. 183 sqq.) obtains a decalogue from scattered precepts in Ex. xx.-xxiii., which corresponds with Nos. 2, 7, 6, 3 and 5 (in one), 9 and 10 (in one), 11 above, and adds (a) the building of an altar of earth (xx. 24), (b) offering from the harvest and wine-press (xxii. 29), (c) firstlings of animals (xxii. 29 sqq.; cf. No. 7, and xxxiv. 19); (d) prohibition against eating torn flesh (xxii. 31).5The so-called Yahwist Decalogue in xxxiv. presupposes a rather more primitive stage in society, partly nomadic and partly agricultural; No. 6 is suitable only for agriculturists and cannot have originated among nomads. The whole may be summed up in a sentence:—“Worship Yahweh and Yahweh alone, without images, let the worship be simple and in accord with the old usage; forbear to introduce the practices of your Canaanitish neighbours” (Harper). It would seem to represent more precisely a Judaean standpoint (cf. the simpler customs of the Rechabites,q.v.).

If such a system of precepts was ever viewed as the basis of the covenant with Israel, it must belong to a far earlier stage of religious development than that of Ex. xx. This is recognized by Wellhausen, who says that our decalogue stands to that of Ex. xxxiv. as Amos stood to his contemporaries, whose whole religion lay in the observance of sacred feasts. To those accustomed to look on the Ten Words written on the tables of stone as the very foundation of the Mosaic law, it is hard to realize that in ancient Israel there were two opinions as to what these “Words” were. The hypothesis that Ex. xxxiv. 10-26 originally stood in a different connexion, and was misplaced at some stage in the redaction of the Hexateuch, does not help us, since it would still have to be admitted that the editor to whom we owed the present form of the chapter identified this little code of religious observances with the Ten Words. Were this the case the editor, to quote Wellhausen, “introduced the most serious internal contradiction found in the Old Testament.”6

The Decalogue in Christian Theology.—Following the New Testament, in which the “commandments” summed up in the law of love are identified with the precepts of the Decalogue (Mark x. 19; Rom. xiii. 9; cf. Mark xii. 28 ff.), the ancient Church emphasized the permanent obligation of the ten commandments as a summary ofnaturalin contradistinction toceremonialprecepts, though the observance of the Sabbath was to be taken in a spiritual sense (Augustine,De spiritu et litera, xiv.; Jerome,De celebratione Paschae). The medieval theologians followed in the same line, recognizing all the precepts of the Decalogue as moral preceptsde lege naturae, though the law of the Sabbath is not of the law of nature, in so far as it prescribes a determinate day of rest (Thomas,summa, ImaIIdae, qu. c. art. 3; Duns,Super sententias, lib. iii. dist. 37). The most important medieval exposition of the Decalogue is that of Nicolaus de Lyra; and the 15th century, in which the Decalogue acquired special importance in the confessional, was prolific in treatises on the subject (Antoninus of Florence, Gerson, &c.).

Important theological controversies on the Decalogue begin with the Reformation. The question between the Lutheran (Augustinian) and Reformed (Philonic) division of the ten commandments was mixed up with controversy as to the legitimacy of sacred images not designed to be worshipped. The Reformed theologians took the stricter view. The identity of the Decalogue with the eternal law of nature was maintained in both churches, but it was an open question whether the Decalogue, as such (that is, as a law given by Moses to the Israelites), is of perpetual obligation. The Socinians, on the other hand, regarded the Decalogue as abrogated by the more perfect law of Christ; and this view, especially in the shape that the Decalogue is a civil and not a moral law (J. D. Michaelis), was the current one in the period of 18th-century rationalism. The distinction of a permanent and a transitory element in the law of the Sabbath is found, not only in Luther and Melanchthon, but in Calvin and other theologians of the Reformed church. The main controversy which arose on the basis of this distinction was whether the prescription of one day in seven is of permanent obligation. It was admitted that such obligation must be not natural but positive; but it was argued by the stricter Calvinistic divines that the proportion of one in seven is agreeable to nature, based on the order of creation in six days, and in no way specially connected with anything Jewish. Hence it was regarded as auniversal positivelaw of God. But those who maintained the opposite view were not excluded from the number of the orthodox. The laxer conception found a place in the Cocceian school.

Literature.—Geffcken,Über die verschiedenen Eintheilungen des Dekalogs und den Einfluss derselben auf den Cultus; W. Robertson Smith,Old Test. Jew. Church, pp. 331-345, where his earlier views (1877) in theEncy. Brit.are largely modified (cf. alsoEng. Hist. Rev.(1888) p. 352); Montefiore,Hibbert Lectures(1892), Appendix I; W. R. Harper,Internat. Crit. Comm. on Amos and Hosea, pp. 58-64 (on the position of the Decalogue in early pre-prophetic religion of Israel); C. A. Briggs,Higher Criticism of Hexat.2pp. 189-210; see also the references underExodus.

(W. R. S.; S. A. C.)

1A Hebrew fragment probably of the 2nd centuryA.D., in the University Library, Cambridge, containing the Decalogue with several variant readings; see S. A. Cook,Proceed. Soc. Bibl. Archaeology(1903), pp. 34-56; F. C. Burkitt,Jewish Quarterly Review(1903), pp. 392-408; N. Peters,D. älteste Abschrift d. zehn Gebote(1905).2So, for example, Augustine, l.c., Thomas,Summa(Prima Secundae, qu. c. art. 4), and recently Sonntag and Kurtz. Purely arbitrary is the idea of Lutheran writers (Gerhard, Loc. xiii. § 46) that the ninth commandment forbidsconcupiscentia actualis, the tenthconc. originalis.3It is generally assumed that the addition in Exodus is from a hand akin to Gen. ii. 2 sqq.; Ex. xxxi. 17 (P.).4So Hitzig (Ostern und Pfingsten im zweiten Dekalog, Heidelberg, 1838), independently of a previous suggestion of Goethe in 1783, who in turn appears to have been anticipated by an early Greek writer (Nestle,Zeit. für alt-test. Wissenschaft(1904), pp. 134 sqq.).5See also W. E. Barnes,Journ. Theol. Stud.(1905), pp. 557-563.6The last three sentences of this paragraph are taken almost bodily from Robertson Smith’s later views (Old Testament in the Jewish Church2, pp. 335 seq.).

2So, for example, Augustine, l.c., Thomas,Summa(Prima Secundae, qu. c. art. 4), and recently Sonntag and Kurtz. Purely arbitrary is the idea of Lutheran writers (Gerhard, Loc. xiii. § 46) that the ninth commandment forbidsconcupiscentia actualis, the tenthconc. originalis.

3It is generally assumed that the addition in Exodus is from a hand akin to Gen. ii. 2 sqq.; Ex. xxxi. 17 (P.).

4So Hitzig (Ostern und Pfingsten im zweiten Dekalog, Heidelberg, 1838), independently of a previous suggestion of Goethe in 1783, who in turn appears to have been anticipated by an early Greek writer (Nestle,Zeit. für alt-test. Wissenschaft(1904), pp. 134 sqq.).

5See also W. E. Barnes,Journ. Theol. Stud.(1905), pp. 557-563.

6The last three sentences of this paragraph are taken almost bodily from Robertson Smith’s later views (Old Testament in the Jewish Church2, pp. 335 seq.).

DE CAMP, JOSEPH(1858- ), American portrait and figure painter, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1858. He was a pupil of Frank Duveneck and of the Royal Academy of Munich; became a member of the society of Ten American Painters, and a teacher in the schools of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and painted important mural decorations in the Philadelphia city hall.

DECAMPS, ALEXANDRE GABRIEL(1803-1860), French painter, was born in Paris on the 3rd of March 1803. In his youth he travelled in the East, and reproduced Oriental life and scenery with a bold fidelity to nature that made his works the puzzle of conventional critics. His powers, however, soon came to be recognized, and he was ranked along with Delacroix and Vernet as one of the leaders of the French school. At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 he received the grand or council medal. Most of his life was passed in the neighbourhood of Paris. He was passionately fond of animals, especially dogs, and indulged in all kinds of field sports. He died on the 22nd of August 1860 in consequence of being thrown from a vicious horse while hunting at Fontainebleau. The style of Decamps was characteristically and intensely French. It was marked by vivid dramatic conception, by a manipulation bold and rapid, sometimes even to roughness, and especially by original and startling use of decided contrasts of colour and of light and shade. His subjects embraced an unusually wide range. He availed himself of his travels in the East in dealing with scenes from Scripture history, which he was probably the first of European painters to represent with their true and natural local background. Of this class were his “Joseph sold by his Brethren,” “Moses taken from the Nile,” and his scenes from the life of Samson, nine vigorous sketches in charcoal and white. Perhaps the most impressive of his historical pictures is his “Defeat of the Cimbri,” representing with wonderful skill the conflict between a horde of barbarians and a disciplined army. Decamps produced a number of genre pictures, chiefly of scenes from French and Algerine domestic life, the most marked feature of which is humour. The same characteristic attaches to most of his numerous animal paintings. He painted dogs, horses, &c., with great fidelity and sympathy; but his favourite subject was monkeys, which he depicted in various studies and sketches with a grotesque humour that could scarcely be surpassed. Probably the best known of all his works is “The Monkey Connoisseurs,” a clever satire of the jury of the French Academy of Painting, which had rejected several of his earlier works on account of their divergence from any known standard. The pictures and sketches of Decamps were first made familiar to the English public through the lithographs of Eugène le Roux.

See Moreau’sDecamps et son œuvre(Paris, 1869).

DECAPOLIS,a league of ten cities (δέκα πόλεις) with their surrounding district, situated with one exception on the eastern side of the upper Jordan and the Sea of Tiberias. Being essentially a confederation ofcitiesit is impossible precisely to fix Decapolis as aregionwith definite boundaries. The names of the original ten cities are given by Pliny; these are as follows: Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis (= Beth-Shan, nowBeisan, west of Jordan), Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella, Gerasa and Kanatha. Of these Damascus alone retains its importance. Scythopolis (as represented by the village of Beisan) is still inhabited; the ruins of Pella, Gerasa and Kanatha survive, but the other sites are unknown or disputed. Scythopolis, being in command of the communications with the sea and the Greek cities on the coast, was the most important member of the league. The league subsequently received additions and some of the original ten dropped out. In Ptolemy’s enumeration Raphana has no place, and nine, such as Kapitolias, Edrei, Bosra, &c., are added. The purpose of the league was no doubt mutual defence against the marauding Bedouin tribes that surrounded them. These were hardly if at all checked by the Semitic kinglings to whom the Romans delegated the government of eastern Palestine.

It was probably soon after Pompey’s campaign in 64-63B.C.that the Decapolis league took shape. The cities comprising itwere united by the main roads on which they lay, their respective spheres of influence touching, if not overlapping, one another. A constant communication was maintained with the Mediterranean ports and with Greece, and there was a vigorous municipal life which found expression in literature, in athletic contests, and in a thriving commerce, thus carrying a truly Hellenic influence into Perea and Galilee. From Josephus we learn that the cities were severally subject to the governor of Syria and taxed for imperial purposes; some of them afterwards came under Herod’s jurisdiction, but reserved the substantial rights granted them by Pompey.

The best account is in G. A. Smith’sHistorical Geography of the Holy Land, chap. xxviii.

(R. A. S. M.)

DECASTYLE(Gr.δέκα, ten, andστῦλος, column), the architectural term given to a temple where the front portico has ten columns; as in the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus, and the portico of University College, London. (SeeTemple.)

DECATUR, STEPHEN(1779-1820), American naval commander, was born at Sinnepuxent, Maryland, on the 5th of January 1779, and entered the United States navy as a midshipman in 1798. He was promoted lieutenant a year later, and in that rank saw some service in the short war with France. In 1803 he was in command of the “Enterprise,” which formed part of Commodore Preble’s squadron in the Mediterranean, and in February 1804 led a daring expedition into the harbour of Tripoli for the purpose of burning the U.S. frigate “Philadelphia” which had fallen into Tripolitan hands. He succeeded in his purpose and made his escape under the fire of the batteries with a loss of only one man wounded. This brilliant exploit earned him his captain’s commission and a sword of honour from Congress. Decatur was subsequently engaged in all the attacks on Tripoli between 1804 and 1805. In the War of 1812 his ship the “United States” captured H.M.S. “Macedonian” after a desperate fight, and in 1813 he was appointed commodore to command a squadron in New York harbour, which was soon blockaded by the British. In an attempt to break out in February 1815 Decatur’s flagship the “President” was cut off and after a spirited fight forced to surrender to a superior force. Subsequently he commanded in the Mediterranean against the corsairs of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli with great success. On his return he was made a navy commissioner (November 1815), an office which he held until his death, which took place in a duel with Commodore James Barron at Bladensburg, Md., on the 22nd of March 1820.

See Mackenzie,Life of Decatur(Boston, 1846).

DECATUR,a city and the county-seat of Macon county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, near the Sangamon river, about 39 m. E. of Springfield. Pop. (1890) 16,841; (1900) 20,754, of whom 1939 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 31,140. Decatur is served by the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, the Illinois Central, the Wabash (which maintains car shops here), and the Vandalia railways, and is connected with Danville, Saint Louis, Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington and Champaign by the Illinois Traction System (electric). Decatur has three large parks and a public library; and S.E. of Fairview Park, with a campus of 35 acres, is the James Millikin University (co-educational; Cumberland Presbyterian), founded in 1901 by James Millikin, and opened in 1903. The university comprises schools of liberal arts, engineering (mechanical, electrical, and civil), domestic economy, fine and applied arts, commerce and finance, library science, pedagogy, music, and a preparatory school; in 1907-1908 it had 936 students, 440 being in the school of music. Among the city’s manufactures are iron, brass castings, agricultural implements, flour, Indian corn products, soda fountains, plumbers’ supplies, coffins and caskets, bar and store fixtures, gas and electric light fixtures, street cars, and car trucks. The value of the city’s factory products increased from $5,133,677 in 1900 to $8,667,302 in 1905, or 68.8%. The city is also an important shipping point for agricultural products (especially grain), and for coal taken from the two mines in the city and from mines in the surrounding country. The first settlement in Decatur was made in 1829, and the place was incorporated in 1836. On the 22nd of February 1856 a convention of Illinois editors met at Decatur to determine upon a policy of opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. They called a state convention, which met at Bloomington, and which is considered to have taken the first step toward founding the Republican party in Illinois.

DECAZES, ÉLIE,Duc(1780-1860), French statesman, was born at Saint Martin de Laye in the Gironde. He studied law, became a judge in the tribunal of the Seine in 1806, was attached to the cabinet of Louis Bonaparte in 1807, and was counsel to the court of appeal at Paris in 1811. Immediately upon the fall of the empire he declared himself a Royalist, and remained faithful to the Bourbons through the Hundred Days. He made the personal acquaintance of Louis XVIII. during that period through Baron Louis, and the king rewarded his energy and tact by appointing him prefect of police at Paris on the 7th of July 1815. His marked success in that difficult position won for him the ministry of police, in succession to Fouché, on the 24th of September. In the interval he had been elected deputy for the Seine (August 1815) and both as deputy and as minister he led the moderate Royalists. His formula was “to royalize France and to nationalize the monarchy.” The Moderates were in a minority in the chamber of 1815, but Decazes persuaded Louis XVIII. to dissolve the house, and the elections of October 1816 gave them a majority. During the next four years Decazes was called upon to play the leading rôle in the government. At first, as minister of police he had to suppress the insurrections provoked by the ultra-Royalists (the White Terror); then, after the resignation of the duc de Richelieu, he took the actual direction of the ministry, although the nominal president was General J. J. P. A. Dessolle (1767-1828). He held at the same time the portfolio of the interior. The cabinet, in which Baron Louis was minister of finance, and Marshal Gouvion Saint Cyr remained minister of war, was entirely Liberal; and its first act was to suppress the ministry of police, as Decazes held that it was incompatible with the régime of liberty. His reforms met with the strong hostility of the Chamber of Peers, where the ultra-Royalists were in a majority, and to overcome it he got the king to create sixty new Liberal peers. He then passed the laws on the press, suppressing the censorship. By reorganization of the finances, the protection of industry and the carrying out of great public works, France regained its economic prosperity, and the ministry became popular. But the powers of the Grand Alliance had been watching the growth of Liberalism in France with increasing anxiety. Metternich especially ascribed this mainly to the “weakness” of the ministry, and when in 1819 the political elections still further illustrated this trend, notably by the election of the celebrated Abbé Grégoire, it began to be debated whether the time had not come to put in force the terms of the secret treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was this threat of foreign intervention, rather than the clamour of the “Ultras,” that forced Louis XVIII. to urge a change in the electoral law that should render such a “scandal” as Grégoire’s election impossible for the future. Dessolle and Louis, refusing to embark on this policy, now resigned; and Decazes became head of the new ministry, as president of the council (November 1819). But the exclusion of Grégoire from the chamber and the changes in the franchise embittered the Radicals without conciliating the “Ultras.” The news of the revolution in Spain in January 1820 added fuel to their fury; it was the foolish and criminal policy of the royal favourite that had once more unchained the demon of revolution. Decazes was denounced as the new Sejanus, the modern Catiline; and when, on the 13th of February, the duke of Berry was murdered, clamorous tongues loudly accused him of being an accomplice in the crime. Decazes, indeed, foreseeing the storm, at once placed his resignation in the king’s hands. Louis at first refused. “They will attack,” he exclaimed, “not your system, my dear son, but mine.” But in the end he was forced to yield to the importunity of his family (February 17th); and Decazes, raised to the rank of duke, passed into honourable exile as ambassador to Great Britain.

This ended Decazes’s meteoric career of greatness. In December 1821 he returned to sit in the House of Peers, whenhe continued to maintain his Liberal opinions. After 1830 he adhered to the monarchy of July, but after 1848 he remained in retirement. He had organized in 1826 a society to develop the coal and iron of the Aveyron, and the name of Decazeville was given in 1829 to the principal centre of the industry. He died on the 24th of October 1860.

His son,Louis Charles Élie Decazes, duc de Glücksberg (1819-1886), was born at Paris, and entered the diplomatic career. He became minister plenipotentiary at Madrid and at Lisbon, but the revolution of 1848 caused him to withdraw into private life, from which he did not emerge until in 1871 he was elected deputy to the National Assembly by the Gironde. There he sat in the right centre among the Orleanists, and was chosen by the duc de Broglie as minister of foreign affairs in November 1873. He voted with the Orleanists the “Constitutional Laws” of 1875, and approved of MacMahon’s parliamentarycoup d’étaton the 16th of May 1877. He was re-elected deputy in October 1877 by the arrondissement of Puget-Théniers, but his election was annulled by the chamber, and he was not re-elected. He died on the 16th of September 1886.

On the Duc Decazes see E. Daudet,Louis XVIII. et le duc Decazes(1899), and his “L’ambassade du duc Decazes” in theRevue des deux mondesfor 1899.

DECAZEVILLE,a town of south-central France, in the department of Aveyron, 34 m. N.W. of Rodez by the Orleans railway. Pop. (1906) 9749. It possesses iron mines and is the centre of the coal-fields of the Aveyron, which supply the ironworks established by the Duc Decazes, minister of Louis XVIII. A statue commemorates the founder.

DECCAN(Sans.Dakshina, “the South”), a name applied, according to Hindu geographers, to the whole of the territories in India situated to the south of the river Nerbudda. In its more modern acceptation, however, it is sometimes understood as comprising only the country lying between that river and the Kistna, the latter having for a long period formed the southern boundary of the Mahommedan empire of Delhi. Assigning it the more extended of these limits, it comprehends the whole of the Indian peninsula, and in this view the mountainous system, consisting of the Eastern and Western Ghats, constitutes the most striking feature of the Deccan. These two mountain ranges unite at their northern extremities with the Vindhya chain of mountains, and thus is formed a vast triangle supporting at a considerable elevation the expanse of table-land which stretches from Cape Comorin to the valley of the Nerbudda. The surface of this table-land slopes from west to east, as indicated by the direction of the drainage of the country,—the great rivers, the Cauvery, Godavari, Kistna and Pennar, though deriving their sources from the base of the Western Ghats, all finding their way into the Bay of Bengal through fissures in the Eastern Ghats.

History.—The detailed and authentic history of the Deccan only begins with the 13th centuryA.D.Of the early history the main facts established are the Aryan invasion (c.700B.C.), the growth of the Maurya empire (250B.C.) and the invasion (A.D.100) of the Scythic tribes known as the Sakas, Pahlavas and Yavanas, which led to the establishment of the power of the Kshaharata satraps in western India. In addition to this, modern study of monuments and inscriptions has recovered the names, and to a certain extent the records, of a succession of dynasties ruling in the Deccan; of these the most conspicuous are the Cholas, the Andhras or Satavahanas, the Chalukyas, the Rashtrakutas and the Yadavas of Devagiri (Deogiri). (SeeIndia:History;Bombay;Presidency:History;Inscriptions:Indian.) In 1294 Ala-ud-Din Khilji, emperor of Delhi, invaded the Deccan, stormed Devagiri, and reduced the Yadava rajas of Maharashtra to the position of tributary princes (seeDaulatabad), then proceeding southward overran Telingana and Carnata (1294-1300). With this event the continuous history of the Deccan begins. In 1307, owing to non-payment of tribute, a fresh series of Mussulman incursions began, under Malik Kafur, issuing in the final ruin of the Yadava power; and in 1338 the reduction of the Deccan was completed by Mahommed ben Tughlak. The imperial sway was, however, of brief duration. Telingana and Carnata speedily reverted to their former masters; and this defection on the part of the Hindu states was followed by a general revolt of the Mussulman governors, resulting in the establishment in 1347 of the independent Mahommedan dynasty of Bahmani, and the consequent withdrawal of the power of Delhi from the territory south of the Nerbudda. In the struggles which ensued, the Hindu kingdom of Telingana fell bit by bit to the Bahmani dynasty, who advanced their frontier to Golconda in 1373, to Warangal in 1421, and to the Bay of Bengal in 1472. On the dissolution of the Bahmani empire (1482), its dominions were distributed into the five Mahommedan states of Golconda, Bijapur, Ahmednagar, Bidar and Berar. To the south of these the great Hindu state of Carnata or Vijayanagar still survived; but this, too, was destroyed, at the battle of Talikota (1565), by a league of the Mahommedan powers. These latter in their turn soon disappeared. Berar had already been annexed by Ahmednagar in 1572, and Bidar was absorbed by Bijapur in 1609. The victories of the Delhi emperors, Akbar, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, crushed the rest. Ahmednagar was incorporated in the Mogul empire in 1598, Bijapur in 1686, and Golconda in 1688. The rule of the Delhi emperors in the Deccan did not, however, long survive. In 1706 the Mahrattas acquired the right of levying tribute in southern India, and their principal chief, the Peshwa of Poona, became a practically independent sovereign. A few years later the emperor’s viceroy in Ahmednagar, the nizam-al-mulk, threw off his allegiance and established the seat of an independent government at Hyderabad (1724). The remainder of the imperial possessions in the peninsula were held by chieftains acknowledging the supremacy of one or other of these two potentates. In the sequel, Mysore became the prize of the Mahommedan usurper Hyder Ali. During the contests for power which ensued about the middle of the 18th century between the native chiefs, the French and the English took opposite sides. After a brief course of triumph, the interests of France declined, and a new empire in India was established by the British. Mysore formed one of their earliest conquests in the Deccan. Tanjore and the Carnatic were shortly after annexed to their dominions. In 1818 the forfeited possessions of the Peshwa added to their extent; and these acquisitions, with others which have more recently fallen to the paramount power by cession, conquest or failure of heirs, form a continuous territory stretching from the Nerbudda to Cape Comorin. Its length is upwards of 1000 m., and its extreme breadth exceeds 800. This vast tract comprehends the chief provinces now distributed between the presidencies of Madras and Bombay, together with the native states of Hyderabad and Mysore, and those of Kolhapur, Sawantwari, Travancore, Cochin and the petty possessions of France and Portugal.

See J. D. B. Gribble,History of the Deccan(1896); Prof. Bhandarkar, “Early History of the Dekkan” (Bombay Gazetteer); Vincent A. Smith,Early History of India(2nd ed., Oxford, 1908), chap. xv. “The Kingdoms of the Deccan.”

DECELEA(Gr.Δεκελεία), an Attic deme, on the pass which led over the east end of Mt. Parnes towards Oropus and Chalcis. From its position it has a commanding view over the Athenian plain. Its eponymous hero, Decelus, was said to have indicated to the Tyndaridae, Castor and Pollux, the place where Theseus had hidden their sister Helen at Aphidnae; and hence there was a traditional friendship between the Deceleans and the Spartans (Herodotus ix. 73). This tradition, together with the advice of Alcibiades, led the Spartans to fortify Decelea as a basis for permanent occupation in Attica during the later years of the Peloponnesian War, from 413-404B.C.Its position enabled them to harass the Athenians constantly, and to form a centre for fugitive slaves and other deserters. The royal palace of Tatoi has been built on the site.

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