Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 15 



tlie writings of Byzantine and German historians. Notices are also to be 

 collected from the works of the Latin writers of an earlier date, which are 

 thought with probability to relate to the Slavonian tribes : though on this 

 subject there is, as we shall have occasion to remark, some doubt. The 

 first writers who mention the Slavi under terms which aftbrd any correct 

 and undoubted information respecting them, are Procopius, the Byzantine 

 historian ; and Jordanes, otherwise termed Jornandes, Bishop of Ravenna, 

 both of whom lived in the age of the Emperor Justinian. The passages in 

 which these authors speak of the Slavonic nations, and the divisions of 

 their races, are important as historical documents. Jordanes is the most 

 circumstantial, and his account agrees in every respect with the various 

 observations scattered through the Gothic history of Procopius. 



Jordanes terms the whole Slavonic race collectively Winidae, and divides 

 them into two branches, named respectively. Antes and Sclavini.* He 

 informs us that " the vast spaces which lie to the northward of the Car- 

 pathian mountains, as far as the sources of the river Vistula, were the 

 abodes of a great and populous nation, termed Winidae, whose different 

 tribes had many local and particular names, but were principally divided 

 into two branches, the Antes and the Sclavini." In describing separately 

 the countries occupied by the Antes and Sclavini, Jordanes differs from 

 this first statement, or assigns to them at least a greater extent. The 

 Sclavini occupied, as it seems, the territory between the Danube and the 

 Dniester; for the Civitas Nova of Jordanes is, according toCluverius, Novio- 

 dunum, which was not far from the former river. But beyond the Dniester, 

 towards the north, the Sclavini extended as far as the Vistula, which the 

 historian terms Viscla. To the eastward of these, the Antes, the other 

 branch of the AVinidae possessed the countries adjacent to the Euxine, 

 from the Dniester to the Dnieper or Borysthenes. It appears then, that in 

 the period refered to, the Slavi had in their possession a very extensive 

 region, many parts of which, at least, had been occupied in a former time 

 by nations of different races and affinities. 



Jordanes mentions the same tribes, with nearly the same appellations, 

 in anotlier passage. Speaking of the wars carried on by the Goths then 

 inhabiting Dacia, he says, " Post llerulorum coedem idem Hermanricus in 

 Venetos arma commovit, qui, quamvis armis disperiti, sed numerositate 

 pollentes, primo resisterc conabautur. Hi, ut ab initio expositionis vol 



* His words are as follows : — Introrsus Dacia est ad corona; speciem Alpibus 

 eniunita, juxta quarum sinistrum latus, quod in Aciuiloncm vcrgit, ct ab ortu Vis- 

 tula; flurninis per immensa spatia venit, Winidarum natio populosa consedit, quorum 

 noinina, licet nunc per varias fainilias et loca mutcntur, priiicipaliter tamen Sclavini 

 ct Antes noininantur. Sclavini ;i Civitatc Novd et Sclavino Uumancnsc et lacu qui 

 appellatur Masianus, usque ad Danastrum et in Boream Viscla tcnus commorantur. 

 Hi paludeg sylvasquc pro civitatibus habcnt, Antes verii qui sunt eorura fortissimi, 

 qui ad Ponticum mare curvantur, Ji Danastro extenduntur usque ad Danaprum. 



