Catus

a word indicating shrewdness, caution, sagacity, or the like, was a surname of Sex. Aelius Paetus, who was consul B. C. 198 [Paetus], and the cognomen of Sex. Aelius, consul in A. D. 4, with C. Sentius Saturninus. (Vell. 2.103.)

procurator of Britain when the people rose against the Romans in A. D. 62 under Boadicea, was by his extortion and avarice one of the chief causes of the revolt. The Britons commenced the war by laying siege to Camalodunum, and as Suetonius Paullinus, the legate of the province, was absent upon an expedition against the island of Mona, the colonists applied to Catus for assistance, who was, however, able to send them only 200 men. After the fall of Camalodunum and the defeat of Petilius Cerealis, Catus fled in alarm to Gaul. IIe was succeeded in his office of procurator by Julius Glassicianus. (Tac. Ann. 14.32, 38; D. C. 62.2; comp. Boadicea.)

a senator, was the accuser of Scribonius Libo Drusus in A. D. 16. A few years afterwards (A. D. 24), Catus was condemned by the senate to be banished to an island, on account of a false accusation of majestas which he brought against his sister; but in consequence of his former service in the accusation of Drusus, Tiberius remitted his banishment, but allowed him to be expelled from the senate. (Tac. Ann. 2.27, 4.31.)