When we think of "decimating troops," we typically imagine an onslaught against enemy troops - the prowess of one army totally overwhelms the other and destroys it.
In ancient Rome, the practice of decimation - or decimatio, as they called it - didn't describe an attack on an enemy; it described a form of punishment against Roman troops.
The ancient historian Livy recorded that Roman commander Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis Sabinus punished troops for desertion during battle by killing 10% of the ones he hadn't already executed:
[Appinus] the consul finally collected together his troops who had been scattered in flight after having fruitlessly attempted to pursue the enemy by rallying his men. He established his camp in an area untouched by the war. After he had assembled his troops, he spoke harshly and quite rightly to an army that had betrayed military discipline and deserted its standards. He questioned individual soldiers, asking them where their arms were, and also questioned the standard bearers as to where their standards were.
He ordered scourging with rods and beheading for all soldiers found without their arms and for all standard bearers without their standards. He did the same for the centurions and double-pay men who had left the ranks. As for the rest, every tenth men was selected by lot and executed.
The practice of executing a tenth of surviving troops as a disciplinary measure fell out of use in the second century BCE.
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