The Antes on the Left Bank of the Lower Danube in the 7th century AD

Abstract

During the 7th century AD, the Antes of the Lower Danube were not mentioned in written sources as participants in the events of that time. The researchers explained
the reason of it by the fact that the Antes then moved to the right bank of the Danube within the limits of the Byzantine Empire. There is even information by Theophylact Simokatta and Theophanes, according to which in 602 in the Byzantine-Avar war the Antes of the left bank of the Lower Danube supported the Byzantines and as a result they were attacked by the Avars. They were called as the “Severs” in the 7th century AD. According to the opinion of some researchers, there is a connection between the “Severs” of the Lower Danube and the “Severians” of the Middle Dnieper, because the term “Sever” means “Left bank”.
Theophanes' information allows us to admit that after 602 a part of the Antes remained on the left bank of the Danube. Maybe, these Antes-Carriers became the vassals of the Avars. Their ethnographic description is quite consistent with the data of Byzantine authors about the Slavs on boats-monoxyls, who in 626 helped to the Avars and the Persians to storm Constantinople. Theophanes reported that they arrived here from the banks of the Danube. Only in 680, a Bulgarian Khan Asparukh expeled the descendants of the Antes from the left bank of the Danube, because they were allies of the Avars, who were competitors to the Bulgarians. They had returned to their historical homeland on the left bank of the Middle Dnieper region. Maybe, this resettlement could contribute to the political domination of repatriates from the banks of the Danube among the local Slavic tribes. Archaeological finds of that time, represented primarily by treasures, indicate that these settlers were not carriers of the provincial Byzantine culture, but they actively participated in trade exchange with Byzantium.
Concerning the spread of the ethnic name “Severians” (Severs) among the Slavic tribes of the Lower Danube and the Left-Bank Dnieper region, there are two options for explaining: or this term appeared among the Slavs on the left bank of the Danube and also on the left bank of the Dnieper convergently; or the descendants of the Antes brought it to the Dnieper region with them and then spread it there. The second assumption may be real, because the term “Sever” in Russian and some Slavic languages denotes a part of the World – the North. This designation for the southern part of the Eastern Slavs is strange. However, the left-bank Antes were located to the
north from the Slavs, who were on the right bank of the Danube in the 7th century. It is possible that in the 7th century AD the term “Sever” received another semantic meaning among the Lower Danube Slavs and then it spread among the Eastern Slavs in a new meaning thanks to the repatriation of the Slavs from the left bank of the Danube to the left bank of the Dnieper.