Defeat of the Cimmerians
During the 7th century BC, the bulk of Cimmerians were operating in Anatolia, where they constituted a
threat against the Scythians’ Assyrian allies, who since 669 BC were ruled by Madyes's uncle, that is
Esarhaddon's son and Šērūʾa-ēṭirat's brother, Ashurbanipal. Assyrian records in 657 BC might have
referred to a threat against or a conquest of the western possessions of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
in Syria,[110][111] and these Cimmerian aggressions worried Ashurbanipal about the security of his
empire's north-west border.[112]
By 657 BC the Assyrian divinatory records were calling the Cimmerian king Tugdammi by the title of šar-
kiššati ("King of the Universe"), which could normally belong only to the Neo-Assyrian King: thus,
Tugdammi's successes against Assyria meant that he had become recognised in ancient West Asia as
equally powerful as Ashurbanipal, and the kingship over the Universe, which rightfully belonged to the
Assyrian king, had been usurped by the Cimmerians and had to be won back by Assyria. This situation
continued throughout the rest of the 650s BC and the early 640s BC.[110]
A relief depicting mounted Lydian warriors on slab of
marble from a tomb
In 644 BC, the Cimmerians, led by Tugdammi, attacked the kingdom of Lydia, defeated the Lydians and
captured the Lydian capital, Sardis; the Lydian king Gyges died during this attack.[113][112][114] After sacking
Sardis, Tugdammi led the Cimmerians into invading the Greek city-states of Ionia and Aeolis on the
western coast of Anatolia.[110]
After this attack on Lydia and the Asian Greek cities, around 640 BC the Cimmerians moved to Cilicia on
the north-west border of the Neo-Assyrian empire, where, after Tugdammi faced a revolt against
himself, he allied with Assyria and acknowledged Assyrian overlordship, and sent tribute to
Ashurbanipal, to whom he swore an oath. Tugdammi soon broke this oath and attacked the Neo-
Assyrian Empire again, but he fell ill and died in 640 BC, and was succeeded by his
son Sandakšatru.[113][112]
In 637 BC, the Thracian Treres tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and
invaded Anatolia,[115] under their king Kōbos and in alliance with Sandakšatru's Cimmerians and
the Lycians, attacked Lydia during the seventh year of the reign of Gyges's son Ardys.[113] They defeated
the Lydians and captured their capital of Sardis except for its citadel, and Ardys might have been killed in
this attack.[116] Ardys's son and successor, Sadyattes, might possibly also have been killed in another
Cimmerian attack on Lydia in 635 BC.[116]
Soon after 635 BC, with Assyrian approval[117] and in alliance with the Lydians,[118] the Scythians under
Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that
they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to
Central Anatolia.[48][113]