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A comment on The Birth of New Spain. Parent comment

Re:The Birth of New Spain by narag on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @06:51PM (#23911808)
It has nothing to do with English. It was a practice that some ancient armies (Romans, IIRC) did with defeated populations, when they had refused to surrender.

It's now used when you mean that a sizeable part of a population dies, not necessarily one tenth, but it's interesting to remember the origin of the expression.

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Re:The Birth of New Spain by alistairSH on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @07:16PM (#23911948)
It was actually used on Roman soldiers for capital offenses (cowardice, rebellion/treason, etc). The cohort being punished would be divided into groups of 10, then draw lots. The "lucky" 9 were then expected to kill the 10th.
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Re:The Birth of New Spain by grey-area on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @03:39AM (#23914807)
That's incorrect. It had nothing to do with defeated populations either.
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