and the Scythians.  Nothing remained of the previous order of things which had so long prevailed there, and the barbarians who for a century and a half had destroyed everything in the country seemed incapable of organising anything in its place.  Urartu had shrunk within its ancient limits around Ararat, and it is not known who ruled her; the civilisation of Argistis and Menuas had almost disappeared with the dynasty which had opposed the power of Assyria, and the people, who had never been much impregnated by it, soon fell back into their native rude habits of life.  Confused masses of European barbarians were stirring in Etiaus and the regions of the Araxes, seeking a country in which to settle themselves, and did not succeed in establishing themselves firmly till a much later period in the district of Sakasene, to which was attached the name of one of their tribes.*

     * Strabo states that Armenia and the maritime regions of
     Cappadocia suffered greatly from the invasion of the
     Scythians.

Such of the Mushku and the Tabal as had not perished had taken refuge in the north, among the mountains bordering the Black Sea, where they were ere long known to the Greeks as the Moschi and the Tibarenians.  The remains of the Cimmerian hordes had taken their place in Cappadocia, and the Phrygian population which had followed in their wake had spread themselves over the basin of the Upper Halys and over the ancient Milidu, which before long took from them the name of Armenia.* All these elements constituted a seething, struggling, restless mass of people, actuated by no plan or method, and subject merely to the caprice of its chiefs; it was, indeed, the “seething cauldron” of which the Hebrew prophets had had a vision, which at times overflowed over the neighbouring nations, and at others was consumed within and wasted itself in fruitless ebullition.**

     * The Phrygian origin of the Armenians is pointed out by
     Herodotus and by Eudoxius.

     ** Jer. i. 13.

It took Cyaxares years to achieve his conquests; he finally succeeded, however, in reducing the various elements to subjection—­Urartians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Chaldae, and the industrious tribes of the Chalybes and the White Syrians—­and, always victorious, appeared at last on the right hank of the Halys; but having reached it, he found himself face to face with foes of quite a different calibre from those with whom he had hitherto to deal.  Lydia had increased both in wealth and in vigour since the days when her king Ardys informed his ally Assur-bani-pal that he had avenged the death of his father and driven the Cimmerians from the valley of the Msoander.