Vinitharius’ war with the Antes of Boz
According to Jordanes, the Gothic king Vinitharius, a vassal of the Huns, defeated the Antes and crucified their king Boz with his sons and seventy nobles — the earliest episode in which the Antes appear, though its reliability is questioned.
- Date
- between 375 and 380exact date unknown: an interval is given
- Place
- Left bank of the Dnieper (?)approximate locationtoday: Poltava and Sumy oblasts, Ukraine (location conjectural) · Eastern Europe
- Participants
- Goths, Antes, Huns
- Threads
- Eastern Europe and Rus’ before the Baptism (1st–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Boz; Bozh; Бож; Винитарий; Vinitharius
In the Getica Jordanes tells that after Ermanaric’s death Vinitharius, unwilling to live under the Huns, marched against the Antes. Beaten in the first encounter, he won the next battle and crucified King Boz, “rex Antorum”, together with his sons and seventy nobles to terrify the conquered. About a year later the Hun king Balamber, with Goths who had stayed loyal to him, killed Vinitharius in battle on the river Erac.
No 4th-century author mentions the Antes, who otherwise appear only in the 6th century, and some historians (Florin Curta among them) think that Jordanes retold an older story in the terms of his own time. Others accept a historical core and, following archaeologists, locate the conflict on the left bank of the Dnieper, in the zone of the Kyiv culture. The date is inferred from Jordanes’ narrative: about 375 in Russian works, about 380 in English ones.
Connections
Causes and preconditions
- The Huns conquer the Alans and the Greuthungic. 370 – 376 · Eastern Europe
Related events
- Jordanes and Procopius describe the Sclaveni and the Antesbetween 550 and 554 · Balkans and Anatoliathe story is known only from Jordanes’ Getica
Same participants
- Battle of Adrianople9 August 378 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Goths
- Gothic War (376–382)376 – 3 October 382 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Huns
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Division of the Roman Empire17 January 395
- End of Roman rule in Britain383–410
Balkans and Anatolia
- Battle of Adrianople9 August 378
- Gothic War (376–382)376 – 3 October 382
- Edict of Thessalonica27 February 380
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Boz (king)
- Wikipedia (English): Vinithar
- Wikipedia (Russian): Бож
- Иордан. О происхождении и деяниях гетов. Getica / Вступ. ст., пер., коммент. Е. Ч. Скржинской. — М.: Изд-во восточной литературы, 1960. — § 246–249.
- Curta F. The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c. 500–700. — Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.