It is a well-known fact that Jordanes traced the origins of the Suavs to the people otherwise known as Veneti whereas Procopius indicated the older name to be Sporoi.
The Veneti have a history of being in history but the Sporoi seemed like a new thing. Some people thought that Procopius means the Serbs (Serboi) and others that he was referring to the Spali – a people found in Jordanes. None of this proved satisfactory.
Enter the Finnish Latinist Tuomo Pekkanen in 1968. Pekkanen’s theories are interesting in and of themselves but now is not the time for them. Suffice it to say here that he traces the Slavs/Suavs as well as Balts (Sudini) to a farmer population that gets enslaved by various nomads starting with the Scythians and then connects them to the Bastarnae – literally “bastards” (as compared with the “pure” Sciri) as well as with the Sarmates Limigantes (Sarmates Servi) or Limig (weak) Antes (as opposed to the Sarmates Arcaragantes or the strong Antes). He also believes that Slav can be traced to słaby meaning “weak”. This last suggestion seems odd as I am not aware of any group that called themselves “weak.” If the name is an exonym, given to the Slavs by others, then that suggests that the Slavic language itself is not a language that was originally spoken by the people that became Slavs. I will only note that Western Slavs call themselves Suavs not Slavs but, more importantly, słaby seems cognate rather with the Suavic name for Swabians, that is Szwaby (also used as a slur for all Germans).
In any event, what preoccupies us first is that Pekkanen noticed a few, previously ignored, references to a group called Sporoi. Or, to put it more precisely, to a group called Doulosporoi – Δουλοσπόροι. While that does not explain the meaning of Sporoi, it does supplement that name with the Greek word Δουλο. Δουλο, or more precisely, Δούλος, means “slave.” Were these people Slavs/Suavs? Who knows but it’s worth bringing them up here, particularly since researchers of Suavic antiquities have been aware of them at least as far back as Pekkanen’s book but have not discussed them at any great length that I know. The two sources cited by Pekkanen are Nonnus Abbas (not Nonnosus the ambassador/historian) and Cosmas Hierosolymitanus. Neither seems to predate Procopius but nevertheless they may be referring to the same group of people.
Pekkanen got these from Migne’s PG (Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Graeca) so here we give the same versions.
Nonnus Abbas
Nonnus the Abbot aka Pseudo-Nonnus
(6th century A.D.)
Cosmas of Jerusalem
Cosmas Hierosolymitanus aka Saint Cosmas of Maiuma aka Cosmas Hagiopolites aka Cosmas the Melodist aka Cosmas the Poet
(8th century A.D.)
Migne’s Latin translation gives “servis progenitos” and “servili semine” for the Δουλοσπόροι from Pseudo-Nonnus and Cosmas, respectively.
There is no reason to translate these passages as the story comes from Herodotus so we might just give that original version. Note that Herodotus uses the word δούλοι (“slaves”, incidentally this is the root for many other words such as, for example, doula – meaning “female servant) but, of course, does not use the words σπόροι (“seeds” or “offspring”).
After the taking of Babylon, Darius himself marched against the Scythians. For seeing that Asia abounded in men and that he gathered from it a great revenue, he became desirous of punishing the Scythians for the unprovoked wrong they had done him when they invaded Asia and defeated those who encountered them. For the Scythians, as I have before shown, ruled the upper country of Asia for twenty-eight years; they invaded Asia in their pursuit of the Cimmerians, and made an end of the power of the Medes, who were the rulers of Asia before the coming of the Scythians. But when the Scythians had been away from their homes for eight and twenty years and returned to their country after so long a time, there awaited them another task as hard as their Median war. They found themselves encountered by a great host; for their husbands being now long away, the Scythian women consorted with their slaves.
Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, by reason of the milk whereof they drink; and this is the way of their getting it: taking pipes of bone very like flutes, they thrust these into the secret parts of the mares and blow into them, some blowing and others milking. By what they say, their reason for so doing is that the blowing makes the mare’s veins to swell and her udder to be let down. When milking is done, they pour the milk into deep wooden buckets, and make their slaves to stand about the buckets and shake the milk; the surface part of it they draw off, and this they most value; what lies at the bottom is less esteemed. It is for this cause that the Scythians blind all prisoners whom they take; for they are not tillers of the soil, but wandering graziers.
So it came about that a younger race grew up, born of these slaves and the women; and when the youths learnt of their lineage, they came out to do battle with the Scythians in their return from Media. First they barred the way to their country by digging a wide trench from the Tauric mountains to the broadest part of the Maeetian lake; and presently when the Scythians tried to force a passage they encamped over against them and met them in battle. Many fights there were, and the Scythians could gain no advantage thereby; at last one of them said, “Men of Scythia, see what we are about! We are fighting our own slaves; they slay us, and we grow fewer; we slay them, and thereafter shall have fewer slaves. Now therefore my counsel is that we drop our spears and bows, and go to meet them each with his horsewhip in hand. As long as they saw us armed, they thought themselves to be our peers and the sons of our peers; let them see us with whips and no weapons of war, and they will perceive that they are our slaves; and taking this to heart they will not abide our attack.”
This the Scythians heard, and acted thereon; and their enemies, amazed by what they saw, had no more thought of fighting, and fled. Thus the Scythians ruled Asia and were driven out again by the Medes, and by such means they won their return to their own land. Desiring to punish them for what they did, Darius mustered an army against them.
The above translation is from Rawlinson (Loeb Classics) who observes that the word “blind” is likely a Greek mistranslation:
“Herodotus means that the slaves are blinded to prevent them stealing the best of the milk. Probably the story of blind slaves arises from some Scythian name for slaves, misunderstood by the Greeks.”
This was already the view of Heinrich Stein and Pekkanen follows Stein’s idea. To link this purported misunderstanding with the Slavs Pekkanen looks for an Iranian word that sounds similar to the Greek οι τυφλόί (oi tyflóί) meaning “the blind”. He then finds it in the Sankskrit andha- and the Avestani anda- meaning “blind” but also “dark.” From there it’s a straightline rush to the Slavic Antae and the Scythian slaves thus becozye “the dark”.
Of course the connection to the Slavs does not depend on the story of the “blinding” of the Scythian slaves being false. Whether the slaves were really “blinded” or just referred to as “dark”, either way they well may have been called Anda- by their Scythian overlords. Of course, if they were not in fact blinded but were just called “the dark”, we then would have to figure out why this was the case and whether the slaves had indeed been dark or whether this was some sort of a metaphorical name for a lower caste.
The story could explain why the Romans then saw the Servi living in the Black Sea vicinity. Though that name is also reported by Ptolemy, he was writing in the era of the Roman Empire and his informers could, in theory, have been Romans. If, in fact, these Servi were speakers of Slavic and if the word Serb is of Slavic origin (Polish pasierb indicates kinship, that is, it means a “stepson”) then could such a word, ironically, also have been the source for the Latin servus itself? That’d be wacky to say the least.
On the other hand, the source of servus may be something like hero – or rent a hero (perhaps one that takes over as in one to whom you pay for protection). That is another meaning of serb (a “protector” – see the title of the Nonnus passage above). Crazily enough, the Croats may have a similar (though Avestani) etymology for their name which may suggest that the Serbs were the “self-help” team that kicked out the (Scythian?) Croats or the other way around or that, insanely enough, these were the same people. Were Sarmatians – the Sauromatae – Serbmatae? Of “Serb mothers” – is that why they moved away (?) from the Scythians beyond the Tanais? Herodotus does not make that connection but he writes:
“When one crosses the Tanais, one is no longer in Scythia; the first region on crossing is that of the Sauromatae, who, beginning at the upper end of the Palus Maeotis, stretch northward a distance of fifteen days’ journey, inhabiting a country which is entirely bare of trees, whether wild or cultivated. Above them, possessing the second region, dwell the Budini, whose territory is thickly wooded with trees of every kind… The eighth river is the Tanais, a stream which has its source, far up the country, in a lake of vast size, and which empties itself into another still larger lake, the Palus Maeotis, whereby the country of the Royal Scythians is divided from that of the Sauromatae.”
Of course, the Sarmatians eventually threw out the Scythians.
Also of course, all of this is several degrees beyond “highly speculative”. For example, the Sarmatians at least judging by their names – very likely spoke an Iranian language
In any event, it seems to me that, creative as Pekkanen’s theory may be it hinges to a large extent on oi tyflóί sounding like antae which seems highly improbable (at least to my ears).
Moreover, what Pekkanen has done is help Procopius create – albeit in a more convoluted manner – an “antiquity” for the Slavs/Suavs that is no different than the “Venetic” antiquity that was already provided explicitly for the Slavs/Suavs by Jordanes. While the story of the Scythian slaves may have been well known, Byzantine calling Slavs Δουλοσπόροι (if in fact those are the people that Δουλοσπόροι refers to) may have been similar to calling Eastern barbarians Scythian which label had, of course, also been applied to the Slavs. (Ironically, another story of the same ilk is given by Fredegar with Avars who now slept with Slavs’ wives and daughters – this was likely a common occurrence given the roving bands of lawless nomads – recall the Huns as being the offspring of Gothic witches).
No less relevant, the sources used likely postdate Procopius. Cosmas (8th century) certainly does but Nonnus also likely wrote after the famous historian. If so, each would have been aware of the new Slavic threat at the Byzantine’s borders and yet neither makes a connection between their Δουλοσπόροι and their very present day Sclavi or Sclavenes. While not fatal to Pekkanen’s argument, this fact seems to weigh against it.
Be that all as it may, Pekkanen’s theory while interesting is no better than this theory which also is based on etymologies. Maybe the civilized nations called all the barbarians by some name like “seeds” aka “locust”. They view certainly would have been justified to a people sitting behind Constantinople’s walls while awaiting a savage horde’s arrival.
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