The map of Europe changed greatly in the 4th Century. It was a time of great migrations of peoples and tribes. The Western Roman Empire collapsed under pressure from various Barbarian groups and the Celts vanished from Eastern Europe.
Any tribal group living outside the Roman Empire was called "barbarian" by the Romans. The Sassandides, successors to the Parthians, Picts and Scots of the northwest, and the various Germanic groups — Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Alamanni, Lombards, Burgundians and Goths — began a series of invasions beginning in 375 and lasting about 200 years. The Germanic groups invaded Roman territory, devastated many regions and, by the 6th Century, established several Germanic states.
Three groups — the Goths, the Huns and the Antes — affected political and ethnographic changes on Ukrainian territory. The Goths, at the beginning of the 3rd Century A. D., migrated to southern Ukraine, defeating the Sarmatians and settling west of the Dnipro River. The Ostrogoths settled between the Dnister and Dnipro Rivers, the Visigoths settled west of the Dnister River and the Heruli occupied the steppes along the lower Don River. In the mid-4th Century the Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Heruli united their territory into one state, which fell to the Huns in 375-376 A.D. Appearing in the area east of the Volga in the early 4th Century A.D., the Mongol-Turkic nomadic horde called the Huns crossed the Volga and defeated the Ostrogoths (375) and the Visigoths (376). They established the capital of their Empire in the Pannonian Lowlands (present day Hungary). During the reign of Attila (434-453), the Huns amassed great power and threatened all of Europe. Defeated in the "Battle of Nations" on the Catalonian Fields of France (451), the Huns retreated to Pannonia. With the death of Attila, the Hun Empire collapsed and the Huns retreated east of the Sea of Azov.
The Antes, considered to be ancestors of the East Slavs or proto-Ukrainians (Rus'), appear during the 4th Century. They were already highly organized as evidenced by their battles against the Goths and their ability to form alliances with the Huns. Once the Huns had vanished, the Slavs continued colonization of the Pannonian Lowlands and Balkan Peninsula. Until the 6th Century the Antes controlled the territory to the west from the mouth of the Dnister River, along the Black Sea coast to the shores of the Sea of Azov, east to the Don River and north to the mouth of the Prypiat and upper Desna Rivers.
The name of the proto-Ukrainian tribe "Antes" is of foreign, non-Slavic origin and quite likely the Antes did not use this name for themselves. Probably they were called "Antes" by their eastern Turko-Finnish neighbors and this name found its way into Byzantine and Goth chronicles and histories of the day. The Antes fought many 32 battles against the Goths, including one in which they were allied with Rome against the Goths in 537. In 602 the Antes united with Byzantium against those Slavs occupying the area along the Danube (Dunai) River, who were allied with the Avars. Exhausted by wars with the Avars, the Antes' state fell apart and they are last mentioned in Byzantine sources at the beginning of the 7th Century for their courageous defense against Avar forces.
Private guide historian Sergey Tsarapora
in Yalta- Sevastopol
