torians particularly make mention of the Treres;*
the results of the Scythian invasion had probably been felt by all the
tribes on the banks of the Dnieper, and had been the means of forcing
them in the direction of the Danube and the Balkans, whence they drove
before them, as they went, the inhabitants of the Thracian peninsula
across into Asia Minor. It was about the year 750 B.C. that the
Cimmerians had been forced to quit their first home, and towards 720
that they came into contact with the empires of the East; the Treres had
crossed the Bosphorus about 710, and the meeting of the two streams of
immigration may be placed in the opening years of the seventh century.**

* Strabo says decisively that the Treres were both
Cimmerians and Thracians; elsewhere he makes the Treres
synonymous with the Cimmerians. The Treres were probably the
predominating tribe among the people which had come into
Asia on that side.

** Gelzer thinks that the invasion by the Bosphorus took
place about 705, and Radet about 708; and their reckoning
seems to me to be so likely to be correct, that I do not
hesitate to place the arrival of the Treres in Asia about
the time they have both indicated--roughly speaking, about
710 B.C.

The combined hordes did not at once attack Phrygia itself, but spread
themselves along the coast, from the mouths of the Ehyndakos to those of
Halys, constituting a sort of maritime confederation of which Heraclea
and Sinope were the chief towns. This confederation must not be regarded
as a regularly constituted state, but rather as a vast encampment in
which the warriors could leave their families and their spoil in safety;
they issued from it nearly every year to spread themselves over the
neighbouring provinces, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
another. The ancient sanctuaries of Pteria and the treasures they
contained excited their cupidity, but they were not well enough equipped
to undertake the siege of a strongly fortified place, and for want
of anything better were content to hold it to ransom. The bulk of the
indigenous population lived even then in those subterranean dwellings so
difficult of access, which are still used as habitations by the tribes
on the banks of the Halys, and it is possible that they helped to
swell the marauding troops of the new-comers. In the declining years of
Sennacherib, it would appear that the Ninevite provinces po