An early Slavic tribal confederation between the lower Danube and the Don, first mentioned in 518 CE, that served for a time as Byzantine allies before being crushed by an Avar campaign in 602.
Political independence ended after the Avar general Apsich's 602 campaign 'to destroy the nation of the Antes'; some scholars attribute the collapse instead to a broader frontier breakdown.
Scholarly survey of early Slavic expansion covering the Antes, Sclaveni, and their successors.