'We always enjoy rewarding public spirit. Decius, Magnificus and
Patrician, has most nobly volunteered to drain the marsh of
Decennonium, where the sea-like swamp, accustomed to impunity through
long licence, rushes in and spoils all the surrounding lands.

'We, in consideration of so great an undertaking, determine to secure
to him the fruits of his labour, and we therefore wish that you,
Conscript Fathers, should appoint a commission of two to visit the
spot and mark out the ground, which is at present wasted by the
inundations, that this land may be secured to Decius as a permanent
possession when he has drained it.'

[The Palus Decennonii is undoubtedly connected with the Decennovial
Canal mentioned by Procopius ('De Bello Gotth.' i. 11), and so called
because it flowed for nineteen miles alongside the Appian Way. In the
Piazza at Terracina there is a very interesting inscription, recording
the fact that Theodoric had ordered that nineteen miles of the Appian
Way should be cleared of the waters which had accumulated round it,
and had committed the work to Caecina Maurus Basilius Decius, 'Vir
Clarissimus et Illustris, Ex-Praefectus Urbi, Ex-Praefectus Praetori,
Ex-Consul Ordinarius et Patricius.' See 'Italy and her Invaders' iii.
348.]


33. KING THEODORIC TO DECIUS, ILLUSTRIS AND PATRICIAN.

[Sidenote: The same subject.]

The complement of the foregoing letter, about the drainage of the