Along with the Cherusci, the Chatti were the most powerful of the western Germanic tribes. They put up stiff resistance during the conquest campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius in 8-9 BC and at least some of them joined the Cherusci and their allies in the uprising against Varus in 9 AD. They remained a threat to Rome long afterwards, with a strike against them during the reign of Claudius and Domitian fighting a long war against them in the 80s AD. They later became part of the Frankish confederation and invaded Gaul during the end of the Western Empire.


Beyond them dwell the Chatti, whose country starts from the Hercynian forest; it is less open and less marshy than the other states that stretch across the wide plains of Germany. For the hills run on and only thin out gradually; and the Hercynian forest, like a nurse with her infant cares, escorts its Chatti throughout and finally sets them down at the edge of the plains. This nation is distinguished by hardy bodies, well-knit limbs, fierce countenances, and unusual mental vigour. They have plenty of judgement and discernment, measured by German standards. They appoint picked men to lead them, and then obey them. They know how to keep rank, and how to recognize an opportunity - or else postpone their attack. They can map out the duties of the day and make sure the defences of the night. They know that fortune is not to be relied on, but only velour; and - the rarest thing of all, which the gods have vouchsafed only to a military discipline like the Roman - they place more confidence in their general than in their troops.

All their strength lies in their infantry, which, in addition to its arms, is burdened with entrenching-tools and provisions. Other tribes may be seen going forth to battle; the Chatti come out for a campaign. They seldom engage in swift rushes or in casual fighting - tactics which properly belong to cavalry, with its quick successes and quick retreats. Speed suggests something very like fear, whereas deliberate movement rather indicates a steady courage.

There is one custom - sometimes practiced by other German tribes, though rarely, and only as an exhibition of individual daring - that has become a general rule among the Chatti. As soon as they reach manhood they let their hair and beard grow as they will. This fashion of covering the face is assumed in accordance with a vow pledging them to the service of Valour; and only when they have slain an enemy do they lay it aside. Standing over the bloody corpse they have despoiled, they reveal their faces to the world once more, and proclaim that they have at last repaid the debt they owe for being brought into the world and have proved themselves worthy oftheir native land and parents. The coward who will not fight must stay unshorn. The bravest also wear an iron ring - which in their country is a great indignity - as a mark of servitude, until they release themselves by killing a man. But many of the Chatti like these fashions, and even graybeards can be seen thus distinguished, for foe and fellow-countryman alike to point at. Every battle is begun by these men. They are always in the front rank, where they present a startling sight: for even in peace-time they will not soften the ferocity of their expression. None of them has a home, land, or any occupation. To whatever host they choose to go, they get their keep from him, squandering other men's property since they think it beneath them to have any of their own, until old age leaves them without enough blood in their veins for such stern heroism.


Tacitus, Germania, Ch 30-31


Germanicus accordingly gave Caecina four legions, five thousand auxiliaries, with some hastily raised levies from the Germans dwelling on the left bank of the Rhine. He was himself at the head of an equal number of legions and twice as many allies.

Having established a fort on the site of his father's entrenchments on Mount Taunus he hurried his troops in quick marching order against the Chatti, leaving Lucius Apronius to direct works connected with roads and bridges. With a dry season and comparatively shallow streams, a rare circumstance in that climate, he had accomplished, without obstruction, rapid march, and he feared for his return heavy rains and swollen rivers. But so suddenly did he come on the Chatti that all the helpless from age or sex were at once captured or slaughtered. Their able-bodied men had swum across the river Adrana , and were trying to keep back the Romans as they were commencing a bridge. Subsequently they were driven back by missiles and arrows, and having in vain attempted for peace, some took refuge with Germanicus, while the rest leaving their cantons and villages dispersed themselves in their forests.

After burning Mattium, the capital of the tribe, and ravaging the open country, Germanicus marched back towards the Rhine, the enemy not daring to harass the rear of the retiring army, which was his usual practice whenever he fell back by way of stratagem rather than from panic. It had been the intention of the Cherusci to help the Chatti; but Caecina thoroughly cowed them, carrying his arms everywhere, and the Marsi , who ventured to engage him, he repulsed in a successful battle.


Tacitus, The Annals, Bk I, Ch 56


Caesar , however, while the vessels were coming up, ordered Silius , his lieutenant-general, to make an inroad on the Chatti with a flying column. He himself, on hearing that a fort on the river Luppia was being besieged, led six legions to the spot. Silius owing to sudden rains did nothing but carry off a small booty, and the wife and daughter of Arpus , the chief of the Chatti.

And Caesar had no opportunity of fighting given him by the besiegers, who dispersed on the rumour of his advance. They had, however, destroyed the barrow lately raised in memory of Varus 's legions, and the old altar of Drusus . The prince restored the altar, and himself with his legions celebrated funeral games in his father's honour. To raise a new barrow was not thought necessary. All the country between the fort Aliso and the Rhine was thoroughly secured by new barriers and earthworks.


Tacitus, The Annals, Bk II, Ch 7


Agrippina , to show her power even to the allied nations, procured the despatch of a colony of veterans to the chief town of the Ubii , where she was born. The place was named after her. Agrippa , her grandfather, had, as it happened, received this tribe, when they crossed the Rhine , under our protection.

During the same time, there was a panic in Upper Germany , through an irruption of plundering bands of Chatti . Thereupon Lucius Pomponius , who was in command, directed the Vangiones and Nemetes with the allied cavalry, to anticipate the raid, and suddenly to fall upon them from every quarter while they were dispersed. The general's plan was backed up by the energy of the troops. These were divided into two columns; and those who marched to the left cut off the plunderers, just on their return, after a riotous enjoyment of their spoil, when they were heavy with sleep.

It added to the men's joy that they had rescued from slavery after forty years some survivors of the defeat of Varus.

The column which took the right-hand and the shorter route, inflicted greater loss on the enemy who met them, and ventured on a battle. With much spoil and glory they returned to Mount Taunus where Pomponius was waiting with the legions, to see whether the Chatti in their eagerness for vengeance, would give him a chance of fighting. They however fearing to be hemmed in on one side by the Romans, on the other by the Cherusci , with whom they are perpetually at feud, sent envoys and hostages to Rome. To Pomponius was decreed the honour of a triumph; a mere fraction of his renown with the next generation, with whom his poems constitute his chief glory.


Tacitus, The Annals, Bk XII, Ch 27-28


The same summer a great battle was fought between the Hermunduri and the Chatti , both forcibly claiming a river which produced salt in plenty, and bounded their territories. They had not only a passion for settling every question by arms, but also a deep-rooted superstition that such localities are specially near to heaven, and that mortal prayers are nowhere more attentively heard by the gods. It is, they think, through the bounty of divine power, that in that river and in those forests salt is produced, not, as in other countries, by the drying up of an overflow of the sea, but by the combination of two opposite elements, fire and water, when the latter had been poured over a burning pile of wood.

The war was a success for the Hermunduri, and the more disastrous to the Chatti because they had devoted, in the event of victory, the enemy's army to Mars and Mercury , a vow which consigns horses, men, everything indeed on the vanquished side to destruction. And so the hostile threat recoiled on themselves.


Tacitus, The Annals, Bk XVII, Ch 57.