Chatti
The Chatti were a Roman era Germanic people that lived in a region approximately corresponding to the modern German federal state of Hesse. The Chatti were among the most important opponents of the Roman Empire during the Roman campaigns in Germania which were pursued under the emperor Augustus and his heirs. In this context they were among the defeated opponents of Drusus the Elder, during his Germanic campaigns from 12 BC until his death in 9 BC. Subsequently, they also appear to have been involved in the revolt against Rome which was led by Arminius of the Cherusci, although there is no record of them being present at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD which initiated these wars. The Chatti and Cherusci nobility were connected by marriage during this period.
Like many of the peoples of their region, archaeological evidence shows that before the Roman invasions the Chatti region shared in the La Tène material culture, similar to the Celtic-speaking Gauls in what is now France. A new regional "Rhine-Weser" material culture developed during the first century AD, which was influenced by both the Romans, and the Elbe Germanic peoples including the Suebi who lived to their east, near the Elbe river. This period of change is believed to have also involved a switch from Celtic to Germanic languages, which also originated near the Elbe. The first surviving Roman reports of the region were made during the Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar in 58-52 BC, do not mention the Chatti, but they do mention the entry of Suebi into the area. He reported them to be mobile and militarized, and creating major disruptions as far away as present day France and Switzerland, even forcing populations to move from their homelands.
Roman sources mentioned that before their entry into the written historical record in about 11 BC the Chatti experienced internal conflicts, which caused groups to leave who went on to found the Rome-allied polities of the Batavi and Cananefates in the Rhine delta. It is speculated that this conflict was influenced by the arrival of both the Romans and the Suebi in their region. The Batavi and Cananefates were known for their soldiers, who became important within the Roman military. It is likely that the Mattiaci, neighbours of the Chatti who, like the Batavi lived under Roman jurisdiction, were also originally a part of the Chatti. Some modern scholars also propose that name of the Chattuarii, who lived east of the Rhine delta, indicates they lived, or had previously lived, in a land once inhabited by the Chatti, but the Chattuari, like the Suebi, were probably Germanic speakers from the Elbe.
The Chatti are occasionally mentioned in Roman literature in the second century, and during the chaotic third century they apparently continued to exist. Like several of the neighbouring peoples, the Chatti may have eventually become part of the Franks, who were first mentioned in the third century. The Franks, in any case, eventually came to dominate the Chatti homeland.
Name and language
The name of the Chatti was written in many ways by classical authors using Latin or Greek, and there is no clear consensus about what it meant, or which language it originally derived from. The language which the Chatti spoke before the arrival of the Romans and Suebi is unclear, because of the lack of concrete evidence. Archaeological evidence shows that the region of Hesse, where they may have already lived before the Romans, indicates that the people there used La Tène material goods, which were also used throughout Gaul, and are strongly associated with Celtic languages. From the second half of the 1st century AD archaeologists classify the Chatti as Rhine-Weser Germanic peoples, implying a connection to Germanic languages.While linguists typically seek to explain names from this period and region as either Celtic or Germanic, the significant spelling variations in the Chatti name are seen by scholars as showing patterns known from both language families in this period. However, neither of these explain on their own how the name could have evolved to become medieval or modern German "Hesse". It has therefore been argued that the name as it came to Roman era authors was originally Celtic, although most of the Chatti had recently become Germanic speakers when they came into contact with Rome. The name could have evolved further in two different ways, among Celtic and Germanic speakers.
- The first consonantal sound in the name was sometimes given in Latin as a simple "c" implying a "k" sound, while the "ch" is interpreted as representing a fricative sound. This is pattern of variation which could match a Germanic language, as these underwent Grimm's Law whereby k sounds became fricative, eventually becoming h sounds. Germanic speakers also sometimes appear to have applied this soundchange to Celtic loanwords, for example in the case of the Celtic Volcae, whose name became Walha in Germanic.
- The second consonantal sound was also rendered in several ways. According to Rübekeil the spelling "-tth-" clearly predominates over "-tt-". This may represent a θ-sound as in English "th", or an affricate "ts". This pattern of variation matches the so-called Tau gallicum in Gaulish, the Celtic language of Gaul, where some t sounds finally became s sounds. Many Celtic or Gaulish peoples of this time had names ending in -casses/-cassi, such as the Bodiocasses, Durocasses, Veliocasses, Viducasses, Sucasses, Tricasses. It was proposed already by Karl Müllenhoff, and later discussed by Helmut Birkhan, that the Chatti might have originally belonged to this group.
However, many other proposals including derivations from Germanic also exist, beginning with Jakob Grimm who proposed that the name is related to English "hat".
Relationships to other Germanic peoples
According to Tacitus, writing in about 100 AD reported that the Batavi were originally been a part of the Chatti. Domestic strife forced the Batavi to move away from the other Chatti and settle in the Rhine delta as special military allies of Rome, before their first clear appearance of the Chatti or Batavi in Roman records. Tacitus also described the Canninefates, who lived in the delta, sharing the same large island with the Batavi, as being the same as the Batavi in origin, language, and valour, but smaller in numbers.The Chattuarii were not connected to the Chatti by any classical authors but modern scholars note that their name transparently means something like "Chatti dwellers". The second element in the name is common among Germanic peoples, especially in this region, such as Chasuarii "dwellers on the river Hase", Ampsivarii "dwellers on the river Ems", and the Angrivarii. Scholars generally believe the name of the Chattuari can be interpreted as "inhabitants of the Chatti-lands", in parallel with the post-Roman names of the "Baiuvarii", which is typically interpreted as a name indicating that this people had once been inhabitants of the old homeland of the Boii, and the Boructuarii, who are believed to have been living where the Bructeri once lived. The Chattuarii lived to the east of the Rhine delta, outside the Roman empire, but close to the Batavi and Canninefates. Wagner and Rübekeil note that this name has a Germanic ending, and is always spelled with "-tt-", not "-tth-", unlike the name of the Chatti. They therefore propose that these were Germanic speaking newcomers to the region, probably Suebi, and without the same Celtic heritage. Petrikovits sees this name as evidence that Chatti had originally lived in this more northerly region, east of the Rhine delta. He noted how Dio Cassius described how the Chatti, like their offshoots the Batavi, Cananefates and Mattiaci, were assigned land by the Romans shortly before they first appear in the historical records.
Tacitus did not explicitly describe the Mattiaci as an offshoot of the Chatti, but he emphasized their similarity with the Batavi not only in terms of their special military alliance with Rome, but also in other ways. Modern scholars also note that their name shows an obvious connection to the Chatti stronghold called Mattium. The Mattiaci were furthermore neighbours of the Chatti, but closer to the Rhine. Petrikovits suggested for example that they represent a branch of the Chatti who decided to remain in the lands near the Rhine which the Romans had assigned to them in the time of Augustus.
Location
The accounts of Julius Caesar's Gallic wars in 58-52 BC discussed the region in some detail, but never directly mention the Chatti, Batavi, Canninefates, Mattiaci or Chattuarii. On the eastern side of the Rhine lived the Sugambri to the north and the Ubii to the south. However, he reported that to their east, near the north of what is now Hesse, the Germanic Suebi had established themselves. These were a mobile and militarized people, threatening the area from a position east of the Ubii. A further indication of their position is given by his description of the Tencteri and Usipetes as two Germanic peoples who had been forced to leave their homeland under pressure from the Suebi. Their homeland was apparently east of the Rhine delta, in the vicinity of the Sugambri, with whom they were able to seek refuge when attacked by Caesar. East of the Suebi was a dense forest, the Silva Bacenis, and then the Cherusci.During the time of the Germanic wars of Augustus, when the Chatti began to appear in the historical record, the core of the Chatti lands is believed to have lain in the low basin stretching through the centre of Hesse. The Sugambri still lived between the Chatti and the Rhine, and their area of control now stretched further south, encompassing the region which the Rome-allied Ubii had left vacant after moving, like the Batavi and Canninefates, to the western side of the Rhine, under Roman control.
Cassius Dio, writing centuries later, but using sources now lost, mentioned that the Romans also assigned land to the Chatti near the Rhine. The Sugambri, being hostile to Rome, attacked the Chatti in 11 or 10 BC. While they were distracted in this war the Roman prince Drusus the Elder attacked the Sugambri, and then built forts confronting them, including a fort in Chattian territory. After these events the Chatti abandoned the land which the Romans had given, and joined the Sugambri, becoming enemies of Rome. This abandoned area which the Romans initially allocated to the Chatti may have previously belonged to the Ubii, whose lands were otherwise taken over by the Sugambri in this period. Alternatively, Petrikovits has suggested that this area near the Rhine represented the country of the Mattiaci, who he sees as a part of the Chatti who decided to remain allies of Rome.
The Sugambri and the Suebi were defeated by the Drusus in 9 BC, and ceased to exist in this region. Many were subsequently moved west of the Rhine, and many Suebi apparently joined the Marcomanni in their move to Bohemia.
At the end of the 1st century AD, Tacitus described the situation which had developed in the preceding generations of Roman hegemony:
- To their west, the Sugambri state near the Rhine had been destroyed by the Romans, and Tacitus reported that the Tencteri and Usipetes had now moved into the area between the Rhine and the Chatti. The Bructeri lands which lay north of the old Sugambri lands were according to Tacitus currently under the occupation of the Chamavi and Angrivarii.
- To the south of the Chatti was part of the Hercynian Forest, which separated the Chatti from the area east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, which was now within Roman frontiers and protected by Roman military positions. There were Chatti living within habitable parts of this hilly forest.
- To the north of the Chatti, Tacitus claimed that they bordered upon a part of the Chauci, who were very powerful in his time. Modern scholars are sceptical of this claim.
- To the northeast, the neighbours of the Chatti and Chauci were the Cherusci and Fosi, who had become much weaker than they had once been.