The Anartes a.k.a. Anarti, Anartii or Anartoi were Celtic tribes, or, in the case of those sub-groups of Anartes which penetrated the ancient region of Dacia, Celts culturally assimilated by the Dacians. Ptolemy's Geographia locates the Anartoi in Dacia. Some groups of Anartes occupied parts of modern Slovakia and southeastern Poland. The Dacian town of Docidava was situated in the territory of the Anartes, according to Pârvan. The Anartophracti are mentioned by Ptolemy. This tribe's name appears to be compound Latin-Greek name and may be related to the Anartoi resident in Dacia, Czarnecki argues. The Anartofraktoi were a northern Dacian tribe, according to Braune or mixed Dacian-Celtic, according to Pârvan. In ancient sources, the earliest mention of the Anartes is in the Elogium of Tusculum. In De Bello Gallico, an account of his own campaigns in the Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar wrote : "The Hercynian Forest begins in the territories of the Helvetii, Nemeti and Rauraci and stretches, for a distance of 9 days' journey for a fast traveler, along the Danube as far as the borders of the Daci and the Anartes". Around AD 172, the Anartes refused to assist the Romans in their war against the Marcomanni. To punish them, the Roman emperorMarcus Aurelius ordered the deportation of the Anartes from their native homelands to the Roman province of Pannonia Inferior, a movement which took place not later than AD 180.
Archaeological evidence
The Anartes were probably identical with, or constituted a significant part of, the archaeologicalPúchov culture in Slovakia, which included the centres of Zemplín, Bükkszentlászló and Galish-Lovačka During the late La Tène period, mixed settlements of Celts and Dacians spread over the eastern Slovak lowlands with Zemplin at its center, according to Husovska. According to Ioana Oltean, archaeological excavation has revealed that some Celtic tribes had migrated eastwards as far as Transylvania, where they were eventually assimilated by the Dacians. Even though some groups of Anartes advanced as far as the Transylvanian plateau, the main area of their domination was to the West of it, Macrea & Filip argue. .
