h the son of the Median monarch, Cyaxares,
who shortly after laid siege to Nineveh, but was obliged to desist by a
sudden inroad of Scythians.

(M207) This inroad of the Scythians in Media took place about the same
time that the Cimmerians invaded Lydia, a nomad race which probably
inhabited the Tauric Chersonessus (Crimea), and had once before desolated
Asia Minor before the time of Homer. The Cimmerians may have been urged
forward into Asia Minor by an invasion of the Scythians themselves, a
nomadic people who neither planted nor reaped, but lived on food derived
from animals--prototypes of the Huns, and also progenitors--a formidable
race of barbarians, in the northern section of Central Asia, east of the
Caspian Sea. The Cimmerians fled before this more warlike race, abandoned
their country on the northern coast of the Euxine, and invaded Asia Minor.
They occupied Sardis, and threatened Ephesus, and finally were overwhelmed
in the mountainous regions of Cilicia. Some, however, effected a
settlement in the territory where the Greek city of Sinope was afterward
built.

(M208) Ardys was succeeded by his son Tadyattes, who reigned twelve years;
and his son and successor, Alyattes, expelled the Cimmerians from Asia
Minor. But the Scythians, who invaded Media, defeated the king, Cyaxares,
and became masters of the country, and spread as far as Palestine, and
enjoyed their dominion twenty-eight years, until they were finally driven
away by Cyaxares. These nomadic tribes from Tartary were the precursors of
Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Magyars, Turks, Mongols, and Tartars, who, at
different periods, invaded the civilized portions of Asia and Europe, and
established a dominion more or less durable.

(M209) Cyaxares, after the expulsion of the Scythians, took Nineveh, and
reduced the Assyrian empire, while Alyattes, the king of Lydia, after the
Cimmerians were subdued, made war on the Greet city of Miletus, and
reduced the Milesians to great distress, and also took Smyrna. He reigned
fifty-seven years with great prosperity, and transmitted his kingdom to
Croesus, his son by an Ionian wife. His tomb was one of the architectural
wonders of that day, and only surpassed by the edifices of Egypt and
Babylon.

(M210) Croesus made war on the Asiatic Greeks, and as the twelve Ionian
cities did not co-operate with any effect, they were subdued. He extended
his conquests over Asia Minor, until he had conquered the Phrygians,
Mysians, an