page_title: Antes (people)
section_title: Historiography
hierarchical_section_title: Antes (people) / Historiography
caption_attribution_description: English: Approximate distribution of the early Slavs in the 6th century (shown in green). The red outline shows the approximate extent of the prehistoric (pre 6th century) Slavic homeland. The green arrows show the ongoing expansions further into the Balkans and into the Baltic. The background map is a modern map of Europe (showing modern national borders and the Tsimlyansk Reservoir)
context_page_description: The Antes, or Antae, were an early East Slavic tribal polity of the 6th century CE. They lived on the lower Danube River, in the northwestern Black Sea region, and in the regions around the Don River. They are commonly associated with the archaeological Penkovka culture.
  First mentioned in the historical record in 518, the Antes invaded the Diocese of Thrace sometime between 533 and 545. Shortly thereafter, they became Byzantine foederati and received gold payments and a fort somewhere north of the Danube at a strategically-important location to prevent hostile barbarians from invading Roman lands. Thus from 545 to the 580s, Antean soldiers fought in various Byzantine campaigns. The Pannonian Avars attacked the Antes at the beginning of the 7th century, when the Antes disappeared as a people.
context_section_description: Scholars have studied the Antes since the late 18th century. Based on the literary evidence provided by Procopius (c. 500–560 CE) and Jordanes (fl. c. 551), the Antes, along with the Sklaveni and the Venethi, have long been viewed as the constituent proto-Slavic peoples ancestral to both medieval Slavic ethnicities and modern Slavic nations. At times, debate over the origins and the descendants of the Antes has been heated. The tribe has been variously regarded as the ancestors of, specifically, the Vyatichi or the Rus (from a medieval perspective), and, in terms of extant populations, of the Ukrainians versus other East Slavs. Additionally, South Slavic historians have regarded the Antes as the ancestors of the eastern South Slavs.
caption: Map of Slavic peoples of the 6th century (by Boris Rybakov)
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