Alyattes is said to have "driven them out of Asia," by which we can scarcely understand less than that he expelled them from his own dominions and those of his neighbors--or, in other words, from the countries which had been the scenes of their chief ravages--Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Lydia, Phrygia, and Cilicia.

But, to do this, he must have entered into a league with his neighbors, who must have consented to act under him for the purposes of war, if they did not even admit the permanent hegemony of his country.

Alyattes' success appears to have been complete, or nearly so; he cleared Asia Minor of the Cimmerians; and having thus conferred a benefit on all the nations of the region and exhibited before their eyes his great military capacity, if he had not actually constructed an empire, he had at any rate done much to pave the way for one.
Such was the political position in the regions west and south of the Halys, when Cyaxares completed his absorption of Cappadocia, and looking across the river that divided the Cappadocians from the Phrygians, saw stretched before him a region of great fertile plains, which seemed to invite an invader.

A pretext for an attack was all that he wanted, and this was soon forthcoming.

A body of the nomad Scyths--probably belonging to the great invasion, though Herodotus thought otherwise--had taken service under Cyaxares, and for some time served him faithfully, being employed chiefly as hunters.