128 



MARTIN L. BOUSE, ESQ., B.L., ON 



With the latter part of this story practically agree the annals 

 of Assyria : King Esarhaddon, as they tell, when a people named 

 the Gimmiraa had attacked his kingdom, under their leader 

 Teispes, met them on his northern frontier and defeated them 

 in a great battle (B.C. 677), and so forced them to turn westward 

 into Asia Minor. A little later, Gugu (whom Herodotus called 

 Gyges and the immediate predecessor of Ardys) sent an embassy 

 to Assur-baniapli, Esarhaddon's successor, with costly presents 

 and two Gimmiric chieftains whom the Lydian King had 

 captured with his own hand, entreating his help against the 

 Gimmiraa, who were then invading his land. But help was 

 delayed, partly because it was difticult to find an interpreter of 

 the Lydian tongue ; and Gugu, though he found another ally, 

 was defeated and slain by the invaders. His successor, Ardys, 

 by swearing fealty to Assur-baniapli, obtained his help and 

 ultimate victory over them. (Still it may have been reserved 

 for Ardys's grandson to drive them out of the region).* 



As regards the earlier part of the narrative of Herodotus, it 

 is true so far as this, that the Kimmerioi did once inhabit the 

 southern part of Eussia, between the Don and the Tyras, or 

 Dniester, including the peninsula which hems in the Sea of 

 Azov : for Herodotus speaks of castles known to their successors 

 as Kimmerian that flecked the region in his time, and of the 

 grave of the royal tribe of the Kimmerioi, all slain in civil 

 strife, which was still to be seen by the Tyras if and Strabo 

 (71-14 B.C.) says that in his day the chief port on the Palus 

 Maeotis, or Sea of Azov, was called the Kimmerian Village, 

 and states that the capital once stood upon the peninsula guarded 

 by a rampart and a moat which crossed the isthmus ;t ^^^nd to 

 our own time there stand the mounds of Eski Krim (Old Krim) 

 marking the site of this prehistoric town. The Kimmerian 

 straits and ferry no longer bear the names by which Herodotus 

 knew them : but the Tartars, when they conquered the peninsula 

 in 1236 A.D., called it Krim ; and as Krim-Tartary it was known 

 to the Eussians until they regained its possession and, dropping 

 Tartary, expanded Krim into Crimea.§ 



But the statement of the cause and manner of the Kimmerian 

 invasion of Asia Minor, although Strabo accepts it, may easily 



* Sayce, Fresh Light, p. 37, and Higher Critics, p. 124-125 ; Pinches, 

 Old Tek. and Hist. Records, p. 390. 



t Her. IV, 12, 11. J Strabo, XI, ii, 5. 



Smitli'a Diet, of Class. Geog., "Cimmerii"; Eng. Cycl., "Crimea'' 

 and " Russia " ; Chambers' Cycl., " Crimea." 



