The vast steppe has seen many tribes and customs die out...
This people, quite unknown from historians and archaeologists, was quoted, for the first time in the Odyssey, where it is said to dwell in Hell's entrance, then in the Assyrian Texts relating their struggles and military campaigns against their Cimmerian enemy, blamed for perturbing the Kingdom equilibrium and eventually in the Bible, where they are called Gomer. Greek-Roman testimonies, much later, ought to be considered, as far as they are concerned, with the utmost cautiousness.
Originating from Southern Russia and Crimea, Cimmerians migrated towards Caucasus under the Scythians' pressure. They burst in on our Antiquity around 720 BC when wrestling with the troops of Sargon, the neo-Assyrian king who founded the Sargonid dynasty. Their migration leads them to the Anatolian plateau, where their presence is ascertained by texts dating back to Assarhadon (680-669 BC), another Sargonid sovereign and predecessor of Assurbanipal.
About 660 BC, Gyges, King of Lydia, and Assurbanipal, King of the Assyrian, enter into coalition under the Cimmerian threat. Believing the latter to have gone far and for ever, King Gyges, after having broken off his alliance with Assurbanipal for the benefit of the Egyptian, will be killed by the Cimmerian around 644 BC. The last reference to the Cimmerian existence, from a Greek source, indicates that this Cimmerian menace had been ultimately eliminated by Alyattes, king of the Lydian and father of the well-known king Croesus.
