a city, the capital of the duchy of Anhalt-Kothen, in Germany. It is the residence of the sovereign, and the seat of the civil and ecclesiastical branches of the administration. It is on the river Ziathe, which runs to the Elbe, on a level and fertile plain. The palace is remarkable for its hall, decorated with the arms and the proverbs of Prince Ludwig, built in 1617. It contains 740 well-built houses, and 5500 inhabitants. It has three churches and several public buildings, and the institutions adapted to a contracted independent state. The trade is mostly dependent on the wants of the court.

KOTTERUS, CHRISTOPHER, was one of the three fanatics whose visions were published at Amsterdam in 1657, with the title of Lux in tenebris. He lived at Sprotta, in Silesia, and his visions began in 1616. He fancied he saw an angel under the form of a man, who commanded him to go and declare to the magistrates, that, unless the people repented, the wrath of God would make dreadful havoc. The elector palatine, whom the Protestants had declared king of Bohemia, was introduced in these visions. Kotterus waited on him at Breslau in December 1620, and informed him of his commission. He went to several other places, and at last to the court of Brandenburg. As most of these predictions promised felicity to the elector palatine, and unhappiness to his imperial majesty, the emperor's fiscal in Silesia and Lusatia got him seized, set on the pillory, and banished the emperor's dominions. Upon this he went to Lusatia, and there lived unmolested till his death, which happened in 1647.