were united by the main roads on which they lay, their respective spheres of influence touching, if not overlapping, one another. A constant communication was maintained with the Mediterranean ports and with Greece, and there was a vigorous municipal life which found expression in literature, in athletic contests, and in a thriving commerce, thus carrying a truly Hellenic influence into Perea and Galilee. From Josephus we learn that the cities were severally subject to the governor of Syria and taxed for imperial purposes; some of them afterwards came under Herod’s jurisdiction, but reserved the substantial rights granted them by Pompey.
The best account is in G. A. Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land, chap. xxviii. (R. A. S. M.)
DECASTYLE (Gr. δέκα, ten, and στῦλος, column), the architectural
term given to a temple where the front portico has ten
columns; as in the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus, and
the portico of University College, London. (See Temple.)
DECATUR, STEPHEN (1779–1820), American naval commander,
was born at Sinnepuxent, Maryland, on the 5th of
January 1779, and entered the United States navy as a midshipman
in 1798. He was promoted lieutenant a year later, and
in that rank saw some service in the short war with France. In
1803 he was in command of the “Enterprise,” which formed
part of Commodore Preble’s squadron in the Mediterranean, and
in February 1804 led a daring expedition into the harbour of
Tripoli for the purpose of burning the U.S. frigate “Philadelphia”
which had fallen into Tripolitan hands. He succeeded in his
purpose and made his escape under the fire of the batteries with
a loss of only one man wounded. This brilliant exploit earned
him his captain’s commission and a sword of honour from
Congress. Decatur was subsequently engaged in all the attacks
on Tripoli between 1804 and 1805. In the War of 1812 his ship
the “United States” captured H.M.S. “Macedonian” after a
desperate fight, and in 1813 he was appointed commodore to
command a squadron in New York harbour, which was soon
blockaded by the British. In an attempt to break out in February
1815 Decatur’s flagship the “President” was cut off and after
a spirited fight forced to surrender to a superior force. Subsequently
he commanded in the Mediterranean against the corsairs
of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli with great success. On his return
he was made a navy commissioner (November 1815), an office
which he held until his death, which took place in a duel with
Commodore James Barron at Bladensburg, Md., on the 22nd
of March 1820.
See Mackenzie, Life of Decatur (Boston, 1846).
DECATUR, a city and the county-seat of Macon county,
Illinois, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, near the Sangamon
river, about 39 m. E. of Springfield. Pop. (1890) 16,841; (1900)
20,754, of whom 1939 were foreign-born; (1910 census)
31,140. Decatur is served by the Cincinnati, Hamilton &
Dayton, the Illinois Central, the Wabash (which maintains car
shops here), and the Vandalia railways, and is connected with
Danville, Saint Louis, Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington and
Champaign by the Illinois Traction System (electric). Decatur
has three large parks and a public library; and S.E. of Fairview
Park, with a campus of 35 acres, is the James Millikin University
(co-educational; Cumberland Presbyterian), founded in 1901
by James Millikin, and opened in 1903. The university comprises
schools of liberal arts, engineering (mechanical, electrical,
and civil), domestic economy, fine and applied arts, commerce
and finance, library science, pedagogy, music, and a preparatory
school; in 1907–1908 it had 936 students, 440 being in the school
of music. Among the city’s manufactures are iron, brass castings,
agricultural implements, flour, Indian corn products, soda
fountains, plumbers’ supplies, coffins and caskets, bar and store
fixtures, gas and electric light fixtures, street cars, and car trucks.
The value of the city’s factory products increased from $5,133,677
in 1900 to $8,667,302 in 1905, or 68.8%. The city is also an
important shipping point for agricultural products (especially
grain), and for coal taken from the two mines in the city and from
mines in the surrounding country. The first settlement in Decatur
was made in 1829, and the place was incorporated in 1836. On
the 22nd of February 1856 a convention of Illinois editors met
at Decatur to determine upon a policy of opposition to the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill. They called a state convention, which
met at Bloomington, and which is considered to have taken the
first step toward founding the Republican party in Illinois.
DECAZES, ÉLIE, Duc (1780–1860), French statesman, was born
at Saint Martin de Laye in the Gironde. He studied law, became
a judge in the tribunal of the Seine in 1806, was attached to the
cabinet of Louis Bonaparte in 1807, and was counsel to the court
of appeal at Paris in 1811. Immediately upon the fall of the
empire he declared himself a Royalist, and remained faithful to
the Bourbons through the Hundred Days. He made the personal
acquaintance of Louis XVIII. during that period through Baron
Louis, and the king rewarded his energy and tact by appointing
him prefect of police at Paris on the 7th of July 1815. His
marked success in that difficult position won for him the ministry
of police, in succession to Fouché, on the 24th of September. In
the interval he had been elected deputy for the Seine (August
1815) and both as deputy and as minister he led the moderate
Royalists. His formula was “to royalize France and to nationalize
the monarchy.” The Moderates were in a minority in the
chamber of 1815, but Decazes persuaded Louis XVIII. to dissolve
the house, and the elections of October 1816 gave them a majority.
During the next four years Decazes was called upon to play the
leading rôle in the government. At first, as minister of police
he had to suppress the insurrections provoked by the ultra-Royalists
(the White Terror); then, after the resignation of the
duc de Richelieu, he took the actual direction of the ministry,
although the nominal president was General J. J. P. A. Dessolle
(1767–1828). He held at the same time the portfolio of the
interior. The cabinet, in which Baron Louis was minister of
finance, and Marshal Gouvion Saint Cyr remained minister of
war, was entirely Liberal; and its first act was to suppress the
ministry of police, as Decazes held that it was incompatible with
the régime of liberty. His reforms met with the strong hostility
of the Chamber of Peers, where the ultra-Royalists were in a
majority, and to overcome it he got the king to create sixty new
Liberal peers. He then passed the laws on the press, suppressing
the censorship. By reorganization of the finances, the protection
of industry and the carrying out of great public works, France
regained its economic prosperity, and the ministry became
popular. But the powers of the Grand Alliance had been watching
the growth of Liberalism in France with increasing anxiety.
Metternich especially ascribed this mainly to the “weakness”
of the ministry, and when in 1819 the political elections still
further illustrated this trend, notably by the election of the
celebrated Abbé Grégoire, it began to be debated whether the
time had not come to put in force the terms of the secret treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was this threat of foreign intervention,
rather than the clamour of the “Ultras,” that forced Louis
XVIII. to urge a change in the electoral law that should render
such a “scandal” as Grégoire’s election impossible for the
future. Dessolle and Louis, refusing to embark on this policy,
now resigned; and Decazes became head of the new ministry,
as president of the council (November 1819). But the exclusion
of Grégoire from the chamber and the changes in the franchise
embittered the Radicals without conciliating the “Ultras.”
The news of the revolution in Spain in January 1820 added fuel
to their fury; it was the foolish and criminal policy of the royal
favourite that had once more unchained the demon of revolution.
Decazes was denounced as the new Sejanus, the modern Catiline;
and when, on the 13th of February, the duke of Berry was
murdered, clamorous tongues loudly accused him of being an
accomplice in the crime. Decazes, indeed, foreseeing the storm,
at once placed his resignation in the king’s hands. Louis at first
refused. “They will attack,” he exclaimed, “not your system,
my dear son, but mine.” But in the end he was forced to yield
to the importunity of his family (February 17th); and Decazes,
raised to the rank of duke, passed into honourable exile as
ambassador to Great Britain.
This ended Decazes’s meteoric career of greatness. In December 1821 he returned to sit in the House of Peers, when
