Cimmerians

“ That the Cimmerians—perhaps the northernmost portion of the great Thracian name, and conterminous with the Getæ on the Danube—were the previous tenants of much of the territory between the Ister and the Palus Mæotis, and that they were expelled in the seventh century B. C., by the Scythians, we may follow Herodotus in believing; but Niebuhr has shown that there is great intrinsic improbability in his narrative of the march of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor, and in the pursuit of these fugitives by the Scythians. ”

“ Besides, for more than a century before the date at which Herodotus represents them as flying to Asia before the Scythians, the Cimmerians were settled on the Halys, and must have been well known to the nations of Asia Minor; and ever since the emigration of the Cimmerians, i. e. for an equal period, the Scoloti had possessed the old abodes of the Cimmerians on the Pontus. What could have induced the Scoloti to undertake such a pursuit a good hundred years later? What made them miss the way, and come into Media instead of Cappadocia? ”

“ The Cimmerians had found means to escape from the Scythians, who had advanced as far as Media. Cyaxares, hearing of this irruption, raised the siege from before Nineveh, and marched with all his forces against that mighty army, which, like an impetuous torrent, was going to overrun all Asia. The two armies engaged, and the Medes were vanquished. The Barbarians, finding no other obstacle in their way, overspread not only Media, but almost all Asia. After that, they marched towards Egypt, from whence Psammiticus diverted their course by presents. ”

“ The Cimmerians, coasting along the east of the Euxine sea and passing to the west of Mount Caucasus, made their way first into Kolchis, and next into Asia Minor, where they established themselves on the peninsula on the northern coast, near the site of the subsequent Grecian city of Sinôpê. But the Scythian pursuers, mistaking the course taken by the fugitives, followed the more circuitous route east of Mount Caucasus near to the Caspian sea ”

“ That the latter would pursue at all, when an extensive territory was abandoned to them without resistance, is hardly supposable: that they should pursue and mistake their way, is still more difficult to believe: nor can we overlook the great difficulties of the road and the Caucasian passes, in the route ascribed to the Cimmerians. ”

“ They called themselves Kymrians or Kimrians, whence the Romans made Cimbrians, which recalls Cimmerii or Cimmerians, the name of a people whom the Greeks placed on the western bank of the Black Sea and in the Cimmerian peninsula, called to this day Crimea. During these irregular and successively repeated movements of wandering populations, it often happened that tribes of different races met, made terms, united, and finished by amalgamation under one name. All the peoples that successively invaded Europe, Gauls, Kymrians, Germans, belonged at first, in Asia, whence they came, to a common stern ”

“ Before the Scythians came a swarm of Cimmerians, sweeping over Asia Minor in the time of the predecessors of Croesus. Their name is still retained in the Crimea and Krim Tartary. They reappear as Cimbri in the latter days of the Roman republic, to which they were very near giving the finishing stroke. Then they are heard of in Schleswick and Jutland, and in Wales it is just possible that at the present day they call themselves Cymry. Before their coming a horde of Celts or Gauls had fallen on Borne, and another invaded Greece later on, leaving permanent settlements in Lombardy and Asia Minor. ”

“ W. Christ [1866, pp. 131-132] connects the name with the Cimbri of Jutland, whose name is alleged to have been somewhat modified under the influence of the Phœnician “kamar,” dark, which may be doubtful; but Posidonius seems to have been the first to take Cimmerii and Cimbri for the same name [cf. Strabo, vii. 293] , and there is nothing improbable in the supposition that the wandering Cimbri may have reached the Black Sea and been the same people as the Cimmerians, who were remarkable just in the same way for their migrations. ”

“ In our accounts of the development of the Western world we have had occasion to name the Scythians, and to explain the difficulty of distinguishing clearly between Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Goths,{v1-545} and other more or less nomadic, more or less Aryan peoples who drifted to and fro in a great arc between the Danube and Central Asia. While sections of the Aryans were moving south and acquiring and developing civilization, these other Aryan peoples were developing mobility and nomadism; they were learning the life of the tent, the wagon, and the herd. ”

“ The Cimmerians also fought the Picts and Bossonians impartially, and several times raided into Aquilonia itself, but their wars were less invasions than mere plundering forays.
But the Picts were growing amazingly in population and power. By a strange twist of fate, it was largely due to the efforts of one man, and he an alien, that they set their feet upon the ways that led to eventual empire. This man was Arus, a Nemedian priest, a natural-born reformer. ”

“ Nor can I regard it as finally proved that the double capture of Sardis rests simply on Callisthenes, and a deduction from Strabo. Gelzer agrees that the incursions of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor and their establishment in Cappadocia must be placed at the least before the year 705 B.C. ("Z. Aegypt. Sprache," 1875, s. 18) ; the devastation of Phrygia by the Cimmerians he puts in the year 696 or 676 B.C. According to the dates of Eusebius Midas (the husband of Damodike) began to reign in Olymp. ”

“ The Cimmerians appear to have been the first to have provoked hostilities; their king Tiushpa, who ruled over their territory on the Black Sea, ejected the Assyrian garrisons placed on the Cappadocian frontier, and his presence in that quarter aroused all the insubordinate elements still remaining in the Cilician valleys. Esarhaddon brought him to a stand on the confines of the plain of Saros, defeated him in Khubushna,* and drove the remains of the horde back across the Halys. ”

“ A nation that, within the historical period, has always encroached upon others is more likely to be the invader, in a given instance, than a nation which has not been known so to be in the habit of extending itself. This is in favour of the Cimmerians having been Turks from the Nogay country, rather than Circassians.
This is the geographical view. Another method is to take the names of certain invading tribes mentioned in history, and to consider how far they belong to the Turk division, or are to be distributed elsewhere. ”

“ One of the earliest movements after this discovery was probably that of the Achaeans of Homer, who about 1450 b.c. invaded Greece (see Achaeans) , bringing with them the use of iron and brooches, the practice of cremating the dead, and the style of ornament known as Geometric. Later the Cimmerians (see Scythia and Cimmerii) passed down from the 612 Cimbric Chersonese, doubtless following the amber routes, and then turned east along the Danube, some of their tribes, e.g. the Treres, settling in Thrace, and crossing into Asia; others settled in southern Russia, leaving their name in the Crimea ”

“ The fact that Herodotus allows 106 years to two rulers of the five Mermnadæ, is no reason for departing from his dates. But we have seen above that the first invasion of the west of Asia Minor by the Cimmerians must be placed about the year 700 B.C. The time is fixed more exactly by the fact that Midas of Phrygia, whose wife was the daughter of Agamemnon king of Cyme (I. 527) , who dedicated a throne at Delphi, before Gyges sent presents there, reigned, in Eusebius, from 738 B.C. to 696 B.C., in which year he killed himself by bull's blood, because the Cimmerians invaded his land: Strabo, p. ”

“ If there were actually a country like that of the Cimmerians mentioned by Homer, where the sun shines otherwise than on our own, shedding its radiance steadily for six successive months and then leaving humanity to drowse in obscurity until it returns at the end of another half-year, should we be surprised to learn that those born during this long night do grow so accustomed to their native darkness that unless they were told about the sun they would have no desire to see the light? ”

“ The Cimmerians, who are called Treres, [770] or a tribe of them, dwelt on the gloomy Bosporus. They came from a far distant region, and are said to have been driven out by the Scythians. They have often attacked the right side, i. e. the eastern side of the Pontus, and fought against the Cappadocians, Paphlagonians, and Phrygians; [771] they crossed the Halys, and forced their way as far as the Ionian cities. [772] Their first invasion is placed by the chronologers in the time of Midas, who put an end to his life by drinking bull's blood, i. ”

“ Near the Cimmerians, in his dark abode,
Deep in a cavern, dwells the drowsy god; ”

“ Cimmericum was formerly a city built upon a peninsula, the isthmus of which it enclosed with a ditch and mound. The Cimmerii once possessed great power in the Bosporus, whence it was called the Cimmerian Bosporus. These are the people who overran the territory of the inhabitants of the inland parts, on the right of the Euxine, as far as Ionia. They were dislodged from these places by Scythians, and the Scythians by Greeks, who founded Panticapæum,918 and the other cities on the Bosporus. ”

“ In the same winding tract of Germany live the Cimbrians, close to the ocean; a community now very small, but great in fame. Nay, of their ancient renown, many and extensive are the traces and monuments still remaining; even their entrenchments upon either shore, so vast in compass that from thence you may even now measure the greatness and numerous bands of that people, and assent to the account of an army so mighty. It was on the six hundred and fortieth year of Rome, when of the arms of the Cimbrians the first mention was made, during the Consulship of Caecilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo. ”

“ Cimbri, a barbarian horde who, with the Teutons, invaded Gaul in the 2nd century B.C.; gave the Romans no small trouble, and were all but exterminated by Marius in 101 B.C.; believed to have been a Celtic race, who descended on Southern Europe from the N.
Cimerians, an ancient people N. of the shores of the Black Sea, fabled to inhabit a region unvisited by a single ray of the sun.
Cimon, an Athenian general, son of Miltiades; distinguished himself in the struggle of Athens against Persia in 466 B.C. ”

“ THE ELOQUENCE OF PERICLES After the death of Aristides, Cimon became commander-in-chief of the allied fleet.
Cimon was beloved by the Athenians, for he showed them great kindness. Every day he invited some of the poorer citizens to supper. When he walked through the city he ordered several well-dressed slaves to follow him. Then, if he met a citizen clad in shabby or threadbare garments, he would order one of his slaves to exchange clothes with him. ”

“ XII 1Nor did any man ever do more than Cimon did to humble the pride of the Persian king. He was not content with getting rid of him out of Greece; but following close at his heels, before the barbarians could take breath and recover themselves, he was already at work, and what with his devastations, and his forcible reduction of some places, and the revolts and voluntary accession of others, in the end, from Ionia to Pamphylia, all Asia was clear of Persian soldiers. ”

“ Distinguished by military ability, by a gentle and agreeable temper, and by the most open-handed liberality, Cimon gradually rose to the front rank among his contemporaries. His victorious attacks on the Persians, his ostracism, his request for leave to fight at Tanagra, and his recall on the motion of his rival Pericles are matters of history. ”

“ If the Cimbri were Celts, the improbability of their originating in the Cimbric Chersonese would be increased, and with it the amount of evidence required; since, laying aside other considerations, the natural unlikelihood of a large area being traversed by a mass of emigrants is greatly enhanced by the fact of any intermediate portion of that area being possessed by tribes as alien to each other as the Gauls and Germans. ”

“ At that the people raised a great shout, and asked Cimon to lead them to the aid of Sparta; and he did so, and Sparta was delivered from the fear of the Helots.
Years afterward Cimon commanded the fleet of Athens in an expedition against the Persians, and he arrived off the shores of Egypt, in sight of the enemy's ships; but there he fell sick and died. As he lay dying he said to the sailors about him:
"Conceal my death. If the Persians know I am dead, they will attack you with the more boldness. Sail away before they learn the fact." ”

“ The tumultuous multitudes who inhabited the unexplored regions of Central Europe, the Celts and Germans, [Footnote: The Cimbri, who formed a portion of this invading body, had their original home in the modern peninsula of Jutland, whence came also early invaders of Britain, and they were probably a Celtic people.] had gathered a mass comprising, it is said, more than three hundred thousand men capable of fighting, besides hosts of women and children, and were marching with irresistible force towards the Roman domains. ”

“ The one great principle for which he is memorable is that of the balance of power between Athens and Sparta, as respectively the naval and military leaders of a united Hellas. It has been the custom to regard Cimon as a man of little culture and refinement. It is clear, however, from his desire to adorn the city, that he was by no means without culture and imagination. The truth is that, as in politics, so in education and attitude of mind, he represented the ideals of an age which, in the new atmosphere of democratic Athens, seemed to savour of rusticity and lack of education. ”

“ Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and nursed the infant genius of his people, and Cimon, after the Persian war, had given it a home. That war had established the naval supremacy of Athens; she had become an imperial state; and the Ionians, bound to her by the double chain of kindred and of subjection, were importing into her both their merchandize and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of the Asiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon, as I have said, with his ample fortune, ready to receive them with due honours. ”