Chatti
The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient
Sources
While
The first ancient writer to mention the Chatti is Velleius Paterculus. He mentioned them in 6 AD in his book 2, 109 (5): “Sentius Saturninus received the order to march with his legions through the area of the Chatti to Boiohaemum, which is the name of the area occupied by Maroboduus, cutting a passage through the Hercynian forest which bounded the region."
The second ancient writer to mention the Chatti is
(51–96 AD) as having overcome the Chatti:"Creta dedit magnum, maius dedit Africa nomen,
Scipio quod uictor quodque Metellus habet;
nobilius domito tribuit Germania Rheno,
et puer hoc dignus nomine, Caesar, eras.
frater Idumaeos meruit cum patre triumphos,
quae datur ex Chattis laurea, tota tua est.
"Crete gave a great name, Africa a greater one:
Scipio the victor has one, and Metellus has the other.
Germany granted a nobler name when the Rhine had been subdued,
and even as a boy, Caesar, you were worthy of this name.
Your brother earned Idumaean triumphs together with your father,
but the laurel given for the Chatti is totally yours."
For the first century AD,
Tacitus also notes that like other Germanic tribes, the Chatti took an interest in traditions concerning haircuts and beards.
A practice, rare among the other German tribes, and simply characteristic of individual prowess, has become general among the Chatti, of letting the hair and beard grow as soon as they have attained manhood, and not till they have slain a foe laying aside that peculiar aspect which devotes and pledges them to valour. Over the spoiled and bleeding enemy they show their faces once more; then, and not till then, proclaiming that they have discharged the obligations of their birth, and proved themselves worthy of their country and of their parents. The coward and the unwarlike remain unshorn. The bravest of them also wear an iron ring (which otherwise is a mark of disgrace among the people) until they have released themselves by the slaughter of a foe. Most of the Chatti delight in these fashions. Even hoary-headed men are distinguished by them, and are thus conspicuous alike to enemies and to fellow-countrymen. To begin the battle always rests with them; they form the first line, an unusual spectacle. Nor even in peace do they assume a more civilised aspect. They have no home or land or occupation; they are supported by whomsoever they visit, as lavish of the property of others as they are regardless of their own, till at length the feebleness of age makes them unequal to so stern a valour.[11]
Between the Rhine and the Chatti, Tacitus places the
To the north of the Chatti, Tacitus places the large area of the Chauci.[15] To the east, the neighbours of the Chatti and Chauci were the Cherusci, who Tacitus describes as excessively peace-loving in his time.[16] (Caesar had described the Suevi, not the Chatti, as living between the Ubii on the Rhine and a forest called the Bacenis, which separated them from the Cherusci. This is why Caesar's Suevi are sometimes thought to be Chatti.)
The Chatti successfully resisted incorporation into the Roman Empire, joining the Cheruscan war leader Arminius' coalition of tribes that annihilated Varus' legions in 9 AD in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Germanicus later, in 15,[17] raided their lands in revenge, but Rome eventually responded to the Chatti's belligerent defense of their independence by building the limes border fortifications along the southern boundary of their lands in central Hesse during the early years of the first century. A major raid by the Chatti into Germania Superior was defeated decisively by the legions in 50 AD.[18] In 58 AD the Chatti were defeated by the Hermunduri in a border dispute over a religiously significant river.
Roman sources identify the fabled Mattium, beyond the Eder, as the capital of the Chatti. Destroyed by Germanicus, its location is not known today, but generally is assumed to be in the wider neighbourhood of Fritzlar north of the river Eder.[19]
The Chatti were opponents of the emperor Domitian in 84 CE, and were allies of Lucius Antonius Saturninus in his revolt of 89 CE.[20]
They appear again during the build up to the
After the early third century AD, however, the Chatti virtually disappear from the sources and are only called upon as a topical element or when writing about events of the first century.
After Cassius Dio, the name "Chattus" appears among others in a panegyric by Sidonius Apollinaris in the late fifth century, now as a poetic synonym for "Germanus".[23] The last ancient source to mention the Chatti, if only in a quotation of Sulpicius Alexander describing events of the late fourth century, was Gregory of Tours.[24]
Allegedly the Chatti were associated with the legendary "First King of the Franks". The story is told of the election of the first Frankish king.[25] The much later Liber Historiæ Francorum says that after the death of Sunno, his brother Marcomer, leader of the Ampsivarii and Chatti, proposed to the Franks that they should have one single king, contrary to their tradition. The Liber adds that Pharamond, named as Marcomer's son, was chosen as this first king (thus beginning the tradition of long-haired kings of the Franks), and then states that when he died, his son Chlodio [428 AD] was raised up as the next king. The work says no more of him.
The Chatti eventually may in any case have become a branch of the much larger neighboring Franks and their region was incorporated in the kingdom of Clovis I, probably with the Ripuarians, at the beginning of the sixth century.
The Chatti name is apparently preserved in the medieval and modern name of
19th Century usage
At the
Chasuarii and Chattuarii
Two tribes in northern Germany have names that are sometimes compared to the Chatti. The
The name of the Chattuarii is in turn, sometimes compared to another people called the
Places named after the Chatti
- Hesse: probably derived from "Chatti" through the High German consonant shifts.[28][29]
- Kassel: derived from the ancient Castellum Cattorum, a castle of the Chatti[30]
- Katwijk: from Chatti and Dutch wijk, "village/settlement"[citation needed]
- Katzenelnbogen: historians speculated that the name derives from *Cattimelibocus, a combination of two words: the Chatti and Melibokus, from Μηλίβοκον (Mēlíbokon), the name of a mountain range in Ptolemy's Geography which has been (probably incorrectly) identified with the Malchen.[31] [32]
- Mont des Cats[citation needed]
In popular culture
- The Light Bearer (1994), a historical novel by Donna Gillespie.
- Mark of the Lion Series(1993), a series of historical fiction novels by Francine Rivers.
- Barbarians (2020), one of the tribes that unites against the Romans prior to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
See also
- Adgandestrius
- Mattiaci
- Batavi
- In geology, the Chattian Age of the Oligocene Epoch is named after the Chatti
- List of Germanic peoples
- Woman of the Chatti
Notes
- ^
Ford, Simon Samuel (2018). "Chatti". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. ISBN 9780191744457. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
Chatti. Germanic *tribe who lived in modern Hesse (west central Germany).
- ISBN 9780191735257. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
Chatti, a Germanic people, who lived in the neighbourhood of the upper Weser and the Diemel.
- ^ "Chatti | people". Encyclopedia Britannica.
- ISBN 978-1-4381-2918-1.
- ^ "The Internet Classics Archive | The Histories by Tacitus". classics.mit.edu.
- ^ James Cowles Prichard (1841). Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind: Researches into the ethnography of Europe. Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper. pp. 352–. Retrieved 17 November 2012.
- ^ Plin. Nat. 4.28
- ^ Peck (1898), Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities
- ^ Strabo, 7.1.3–4.
- ^ "Cornelius Tacitus, Germany and its Tribes, chapter 30". www.perseus.tufts.edu.
- ^ "Cornelius Tacitus, Germany and its Tribes, chapter 31". www.perseus.tufts.edu.
- ^ "Cornelius Tacitus, Germany and its Tribes, chapter 32". www.perseus.tufts.edu.
- ^ "Cornelius Tacitus, Germany and its Tribes, chapter 29". www.perseus.tufts.edu.
- ^ ISBN 9789077922736
- ^ "Cornelius Tacitus, Germany and its Tribes, chapter 35". www.perseus.tufts.edu.
- ^ "Cornelius Tacitus, Germany and its Tribes, chapter 36". www.perseus.tufts.edu.
- ^ Tacitus, The Annals 1.55
- ^ Tacitus, The Annals 12.27
- ^ Armin Becker: Mattium. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2. edition, volume 19, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin – New York 2001, p. 443–444. (restricted online copy, p. 443, at Google Books) (German)
- ISBN 978-0-415-10195-0.
- ^ Cassius Dio, 78.14.1f; Greek.
- ^ Fragmenta Valesiana 377.
- ^ Sidonius, Carmina 7.388ff. In this poem honouring Avitus, the "Chatt" is restricted by the swampy water of the river Elbe. Cf. Ludwig Rübekeil, Diachrone Studien zur Kontaktzone zwischen Kelten und Germanen, ÖAW, Vienna 2002, pp. 45f.
- Historia Francorum, 2.9.55.
- ^ Liber Historiæ Francorum 4–5, MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum II, ed. B. Krusch, Hanover, 1888, pp. 245–246
- ^ Satow, Ernest Mason (1932). A Guide to Diplomatic Practice. London: Longmans.
- ^ Schütte (1917), Ptolemy's Maps of Northern Europe, Kjøbenhavn, H. Hagerup, p. 119
- ^ A Brief Introduction to the History of Hesse (Hessen) Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The History Files: Hesse
- ^ Kessler, P. L. "Kingdoms of Germany - Hesse". The History Files. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
- ^ "Meyers Konversationslexikon 1888, Vol. 9, Page 623". Archived from the original on 2007-06-12. Retrieved 2017-09-17.
- ^ "Meyers Konversationslexikon 1888, Vol. 11, Page 449". Archived from the original on 2007-06-11. Retrieved 2017-09-17.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
External links
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905. .