Woman of the Chatti

Around 100 AD, Suetonius wrote that the Roman emperor Vitellius trusted in the prophecies of his seeress, from the Chatti tribe[1] (vaticinante Chatta muliere, cui velut oraculo adquiescebat (Vit.

[3] Suspectus et in morte matris fuit, quasi aegrae praeberi cibum prohibuisset, vaticinante Chatta muliere, cui velut oraculo adquiescebat, ita demum firmiter ac diutissime imperaturum, si superstes parenti exstitisset.

Alii traduiit ipsam taedio praesentium et imminentium metu venenum a filio impetrasse, haud sane difficulter.

[5]Moreover, when his mother died, he was suspected of having forbidden her being given food when she was ill, because a woman of the Chatti, in whom he believed as he would in an oracle, prophesied that he would rule securely and for a long time, but only if he should survive his parent.

[7]According to some accounts, a prophet of the Chatti, a woman whom Vitellius credited with oracular powers, had promised him a long and secure reign if he outlived his mother; so when she fell sick, he had her starved to death.

Another version of the story is that his mother, grown weary of the present and apprehensive of the torture, begged him for a supply of poison; a request which he was not slow to grant.