# Unknown Archon

The term Unknown Archon or Unnamed Serbian Archon (Serbian: Непознати архонт / неименовани српски архонт, Nepoznati arhont / neimenovani srpski arhont), with the title of archon usually translated as a ruler or prince or knez, refers to ruler of the Serbs of the first half of the 7th century who led half of the Serbs from their homeland (White Serbia) to settle in the Balkans during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (610–641), as mentioned in Emperor Constantine VII's work De Administrando Imperio (10th century). The work does not record his name, but states that he was the progenitor of the first Serbian dynasty (known in historiography as the Vlastimirović dynasty), and that he died before the arrival of the Bulgars on the Balkans (680), succeeded by his line of descendants.

## De Administrando Imperio

   "It should be known that the Serbs are descended from the unbaptized Serbs, also called 'white', who live beyond Turkey, in a region called by them Boïki, where their neighbor is Francia, as is also Megali Croatia, the unbaptized, also called 'white'. in this place, then, these Serbs also dwelt from the beginning. Now, after the two brothers succeeded their father in the rule of Serbia, one of them, taking one half of the folk, came as the refugee to Heraclius, the emperor of the Romans, and the same emperor Heraclius received him and gave him a region in the theme of Thessalonica to settle in, namely Serblia, which from that time has acquired this denomination.
   Then, after some time these same Serbs decided to depart to their own homes, and the emperor sent them off. And so, when they had crossed the Danube River, they changed their minds and sent a request to the emperor Heraclius, through the military governor then holding Belgrade that he would grant them other land to settle. And since what is now Serbia and Pagania and the so-called country of the Zachlumians and Trebounia and the country of the Kanalites were under the dominion of the emperor of the Romans, and since these countries had been made desolate by the Avars (for they had expelled from those parts the Romans who now live in Dalmatia and Dyrrachium), the emperor settled these same Serbs in these countries, and they were subject to the emperor of the Romans. And the emperor brought priests from Rome and baptized them and taught them fairly to perform works of piety and expounded to them the faith of the Christians, at the time when Bulgaria was under the rule of the Romans. Now, when that same Serbian archon died who came as a refugee to the emperor, his son ruled in his succession, and thereafter his grandson, and in like manner the succeeding archontes from his family/clan.
   (It should be known) that the country of the Terbounians and the Kanalites is one. The inhabitants are descended from the unbaptized Serbs, from that archon who refuged to the Emperor Heraclius from unbaptized Serbia, until the time of Vlastimer archon of Serbia.

## Studies

According to the accounts in DAI the first Christianization of the Serbs should be dated to 632–638; this could be interpreted at first glance as Porphyrogenitus' invention, or might have actually taken place, encompassing a limited group of chiefs and then very poorly received by the wider layers of the tribe. In early historical assessment like that of German historian Ludwig Albrecht Gebhardi (1735–1802), the Serb archon was a son of Dervan, who was the Duke (dux) of the Surbi, east of the Saale. Francis Dvornik (1962) and Relja Novaković (1977) argued the possibility that they were brothers or other relatives.
In contemporary historiography and archaeology, the narratives of De Administrando Imperio have been reassessed as they contain anachronisms and factual mistakes. The account in DAI about the Serbs mentions that they requested from the Byzantine commander of present-day Belgrade to settle in the theme of Thessalonica, which was formed ca. 150 years after the reign of Heraclius which was in the 7th century. For the purposes of its narrative, the DAI formulates a mistaken etymology of the Serbian ethnonym which it derives from Latin servi (serfs).
As the Byzantine Empire sought to establish its hegemony towards the Serbs, the narrative of the DAI sought to establish a historical hegemony over the Serbs by claiming that their arrival, settlement and conversion to Christianity was the direct result of the Byzantine interference in the centuries which preceded the writing of DAI. D. Dzino (2010) considers that the story of the migration from White Serbia after the invitation of Heraclius as a means of explanation of the settlement of the Serbs is a form of rationalization of the social and cultural change which the Balkans had undergone via the misinterpretation of historical events placed in late antiquity.