DECURIO, a Roman official title, used in three connexions. (1) A member of the senatorial order in the Italian towns under the administration of Rome, and later in provincial towns organized on the Italian model (see [Curia] 4). The number of decuriones varied in different towns, but was usually 100. The qualifications for the office were fixed in each town by a special law for that community (lex municipalis). Cicero (in Verr. 2. 49, 120) alludes to an age limit (originally thirty years, until lowered by Augustus to twenty-five), to a property qualification (cf. Pliny, Ep. i. 19. 2), and to certain conditions of rank. The method of appointment varied in different towns and at different periods. In the early municipal constitution ex-magistrates passed automatically into the senate of their town; but at a later date this order was reversed, and membership of the senate became a qualification for the magistracy. Cicero (l.c.) speaks of the senate in the Sicilian towns as appointed by a vote of the township. But in most towns it was the duty of the chief magistrate to draw up a list (album) of the senators every five years. The decuriones held office for life. They were convened by the magistrate, who presided as in the Roman senate. Their powers were extensive. In all matters the magistrates were obliged to act according to their direction, and in some towns they heard cases of appeal against judicial sentences passed by the magistrate. By the time of the municipal law of Julius Caesar (45 B.C.) special privileges were conferred on the decuriones, including the right to appeal to Rome for trial in criminal cases. Under the principate their status underwent a marked decline. The office was no longer coveted, and documents of the 3rd and 4th centuries show that means were devised to compel members of the towns to undertake it. By the time of the jurists it had become hereditary and compulsory. This change was largely due to the heavy financial burdens which the Roman government laid on the municipal senates. (2) The president of a decuria, a subdivision of the curia (q.v.). (3) An officer in the Roman cavalry, commanding a troop of ten men (decuria).
Bibliography.—C. G. Bruns, Fontes juris Romani, c. 3, No. 18, c. 4, Nos. 27, 29, 30 (leges municipales); J. C. Orelli, Inscr. Latinae, No. 3721 (Album of Canusium); Godefroy, Paratitl. ad cod. Theodosianam, xii. 1 (vol. iv. pp. 352 et seq., ed. Ritter); J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, i. pp. 183 et seq. (Leipzig, 1881); P. Willems, Droit public romain, pp. 535 et seq. (Paris, 1884); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, IV. ii. pp. 2319 foll. (Stuttgart, 1901); W. Liebenam, Städteverwaltung im römischen Kaiserreiche (Leipzig, 1900).
(A. M. Cl.)
DÉDÉAGATCH, a seaport of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Adrianople, 10 m. N.W. of the Maritza estuary, on the Gulf of Enos, an inlet of the Aegean Sea. Pop. (1905) about 3000, mostly Greeks. Until 1871 Dédéagatch was a mere cluster of fishermen’s huts. A new town then began to spring up, settlers being attracted by the prospect of opening up a trade in the products of a vast forest of valonia oaks which grew near. In 1873 it was made the chief town of a Kaza, to which it gave its name, and a Kaimakam was appointed to it. In 1884 it was raised in administrative rank from a Kaza to a Sanjak, and the governor became a Mutessarif. In 1889 the Greek archbishopric of Enos was transferred to Dédéagatch. On the opening, early in 1896, of the Constantinople-Salonica railway, which has a station here, a large proportion of the extensive transit trade which Enos, situated at the mouth of the Maritza, had acquired, was immediately diverted to Dédéagatch, and an era of unprecedented prosperity began; but when the railway connecting Burgas on the Black Sea with the interior was opened, in 1898, Dédéagatch lost all it had won from Enos. Owing to the lack of shelter in its open roadstead, the port has not become the great commercial centre which its position otherwise qualifies it to be. It is, however, one of the chief outlets for the grain trade of the Adrianople, Demotica and Xanthi districts. The valonia trade has also steadily developed, and is supplemented by the export of timber, tobacco and almonds. In 1871, while digging out the foundations of their houses, the settlers found many ancient tombs. Probably these are relics, not of the necropolis of the ancient Zonê, but of a monastic community of Dervishes, of the Dédé sect, which was established here in the 15th century, shortly after the Turkish conquest, and gave to the place its name.
DEDHAM, a township and the county seat of Norfolk county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., with an area of 23 sq. m. of comparatively level country. Pop. (1890) 7123; (1900) 7457, of whom 2186 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 9284. The township is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by interurban electric lines. It contains three villages, Dedham, East Dedham and Oakdale. Dedham has a public library (1854; incorporated 1871). The Dedham historical society was organized in 1859 and was incorporated in 1862. The Fairbanks house was erected in part as early as 1654. Carpets, handkerchiefs and woollen goods are manufactured, and a pottery here is reputed to make the only true crackleware outside the East. Dedham was “planted” in 1635 and was incorporated in 1636. It was one of the first two inland settlements of the colony, being coeval with Concord. The original plantation, about 20 m. long and 10 m. wide, extended from Roxbury and Dorchester to the present state line of Rhode Island: from this territory several townships were created, including Westwood (pop. in 1910, 1266), in 1897. A free public school, one of the first in America to be supported by direct taxation, was established in Dedham in 1645. In the Woodward tavern, the birthplace of Fisher Ames, a convention met in September 1774 and adjourned to Milton (q.v.), where it passed the Suffolk Resolves.
DEDICATION (Lat. dedicatio, from dedicare, to proclaim, to announce), properly the setting apart of anything by solemn proclamation. It is thus in Latin the term particularly applied to the consecration of altars, temples and other sacred buildings, and also to the inscription prefixed to a book, &c., and addressed to some particular person. This latter practice, which formerly had the purpose of gaining the patronage and support of the person so addressed, is now only a mark of affection or regard. In law, the word is used of the setting apart by a private owner of a road to public use. (See [Highway].)