Note 46 — Chapter IV · VAN

Years before this noble pronouncement was engraved in its imperishable arrowheads the empire of Assyria had come to an end. Nineveh was laid desolate in 606 B.C. by her Babylonian subjects assisted by the hordes of the Scythian king.46 Within a very brief period of the history of these countries ethnic changes on a vast scale had taken place. New nations had appeared upon the scene. The Cimmerian nomads, followed closely by the wild tribes of Scythia, had penetrated southwards from the countries on the north of Caucasus and swarmed over the settled lands. Ancient kingdoms tottered and fell into the human surge. It is just at this period that we come to hear of the Armenians. All the evidence points to the conclusion that they entered their historical seats from the west,47 as a branch of a considerable immigration of Indo-European peoples crossing the straits from Europe into Asia Minor and perhaps originally coming from homes in the steppes north of the Black Sea. Just as their kinsmen, invading Europe, drove the old races before them, such as the Etruscans, the Ligurians, and the Basques, so the Armenians seem to have filled the void which may have been created by the ravages of the Scythians and to have supplanted the subjects of the old Khaldian dynasty in the possession of the plains of the tableland.