Editing Cimmerians (section)

=====Final defeat=====
[[File:Britishmuseumbintepehorserelief.jpg|thumb|left|300px|A relief depicting mounted Lydian warriors on slab of marble from a tomb.]]
Despite these setbacks, the Lydian kingdom was able to grow in power, and the [[Lydians]] themselves appear to have adopted Cimmerian military practices such as the use of mounted cavalry, with the Lydians fighting using long spears and archers, both on horseback.{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=74}}

Around {{c.|635 BC}},{{sfn|Spalinger|1978a|p=408}} and with Neo-Assyrian approval,{{sfn|Grousset|1970|p=9}} the Scythians under their king [[Madyes]] conquered Urartu,{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=564}}{{sfn|Bouzek|2001|p=39}} entered Central Anatolia,{{sfn|Phillips|1972|p=129}} and defeated the Cimmerians and Treres.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Spalinger|1978a|p=406}}|{{harvnb|Diakonoff|1985|p=95}}|{{harvnb|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=559}}|{{harvnb|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=567}}|{{harvnb|Tokhtas’ev|1991}}|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|1999|p=508}}|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|1999|p=517}}|{{harvnb|de Boer|2006|p=45}}|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|2006|p=151}}|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|2018}}|{{harvnb|Fuchs|2023|p=759}}}}</ref> This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes's Scythians, whom [[Strabo|Strabo of Amasia]] credits with expelling the Treres from Asia Minor, and of the Lydians led by their king [[Alyattes]],{{sfn|Parzinger|2004|p=23-24}} who was himself the son of Sadyattes as well as the grandson of Ardys and the great-grandson of Gyges, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and [[Polyaenus|Polyaenus of Bithynia]] claim permanently defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{harvnb|Tokhtas’ev|1991}}|{{harvnb|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=559}}|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|1993a|pp=124–125}}|{{harvnb|Olbrycht|2000a|p=92}}|{{harvnb|Xydopoulos|2015|p=120}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2017|pp=74–75}}|{{harvnb|Ivantchik|2018}}|{{harvnb|de Boer|2021|p=25}}|{{harvnb|Kõiv|2022|pp=267–269}}|{{harvnb|Adalı|2023|p=220}}}}</ref>

In an inscription from after {{c.|638 BC}}, Ashurbanipal thanked the god Marduk for the fate which had struck Sandakšatru, suggesting that he had experienced a horrifying death not unlike his father's.{{sfn|Fuchs|2023|p=759}}

The Cimmerians completely disappeared from history following this final defeat,{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=559}}{{sfn|Ivantchik|2018}} and they were soon assimilated by the various populations and polities of Anatolia, such as Lydia, Media, and Pteria.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000a|p=92}} It was also around this time that the last still-existing Syro-Hittite and Aramaean states in Anatolia, which had been either independent or vassals of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Phrygia, Urartu, or of the Cimmerians, also disappeared, although the exact circumstances of their end are still very uncertain.{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=72}}

Scythian power in West Asia thus reached its peak under Madyes, with the West Asian territories ruled by the Scythian kingdom extending from the [[Kızılırmak River|Halys river]] in Anatolia in the west to the Caspian Sea and the eastern borders of Media in the east, and from Transcaucasia in the north to the northern borders of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the south.{{sfn|Phillips|1972|p=134}}{{sfn|Spalinger|1978a|p=408}}{{sfn|Ivantchik|2001|p=327}} And, following the defeat of the Cimmerians and the disappearance of these states, it was the new Lydian Empire of Alyattes which became the dominant power of Anatolia,{{sfn|Diakonoff|1985|p=95}}{{sfn|Adalı|2023|p=220}} while the city of Sinope was re-founded{{sfn|Bouzek|2001|p=39}}{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=37}} by the Milesian Greek colonists Kōos and Krētinēs.{{sfn|Ivantchik|2010|p=69}}{{sfn|Xydopoulos|2015|p=121}}