Deciates

• a people of Liguria, Plin. 3, 4, 5, § 35; Flor. 2, 3 fin.: oppidum Deciatum, Mel. 2, 5, 3.

DECIA´TES, DECIA´TAE (Δεκιῆται). Ptolemy (Ptol. 2.10) has the form Δεκεάτιοι. The Deciates were in Gallia Narbonensis, west of the Var, and their neighbours on the west were the Oxybii (Plin. Nat. 3.5). Ptolemy makes Antipolis (Antibes) the chief town of the Deciates; but if this was so in Ptolemy's time, it was not so at an earlier date, for Antipolis was a Greek settlement. Antipolis, however, may have been founded in the country of the Deciates, who occupied the tract along the coast between the town and the Var, and were consequently the nearest people of Transalpine Gaul to Italy. Polybius (Plb. 33.7; Strab. p. 202), who calls the Deciates a Ligurian people, tells how the Ligurians besieged Antipolis and Nicaea, and the Massaliots sent for help to Rome. The Romans sent some commissioners, who landed at Aegitna in the territory of the Oxybii; but the Oxybii, who had heard that they came to give them orders to desist from the siege, wounded one of the commissioners. Upon this the Romans sent the consul Q. Opimius with an army, who defeated the Oxybii and Deciates, and gave part of their country to the Massaliots (B.C. 154). According to Florus (Flor. 2.3), the Deciates were again in arms with the Salyes (B.C. 125), but were defeated by the consul M. Fulvius Flaccus.

The Deciates, as it appears, were also included by Livy among the Transalpine Ligures, as we may infer from the epitome of the 47th book. Stephanus (s. v. Δεκίητον) mentions a town of Italy called Decietum, on the authority of the geographer Artemidorus; and he gives the ethnic name Decietae. Whatever error there may be in this extract, it is plain that Stephanus means the Deciates. Mela (2.5) mentions an oppidum Deciatum;a nd it is not Antipolis, for he speaks of Antipolis as a separate place. The situation of this town, if there was such a place, is unknown.