The New International Encyclopædia/Catti

CAT′TI, or CHATTI, kăt′tī̇ (Lat., from Celtic, connected, probably as an original totem-name, with O. Ir. cat, Welsh cath, Corn. cath, cat). A German people, included by Cæsar under the name Suevi (q.v.), who inhabited a country included in the present Hesse and the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau. The southwestern part of their territory, around Mattiacum, was conquered by the Romans under Drusus. The Catti took part in the general rising of the Germans under Arminius (Hermann). Tacitus praises them as excellent foot-soldiers. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, in the end of the Second Century, they made incursions into Roman Germany and Rhætia. Caracalla failed in an expedition against them and the Alemanni in the Third Century. About the middle of that century their name began to give place to that of the Franks (q.v.), and is last mentioned by Claudian in the latter part of the Fourth Century.