Cimmĕrii

, a people near the Palus Mœotis, who invaded Asia Minor, and seized upon the kingdom of Cyaxeres. After they had been masters of the country for 28 years, they were driven back by Alyattes king of Lydia. Hero dot us , bk. 1 , ch. 6 , . ; bk. 4 , ch. 1 , . ――Another nation on the western coast of Italy, generally imagined to have lived in caves near the sea-shore of Camp an i a, and there, in concealing themselves from the light of the sun, to have made their retreat the receptacle of their plunder. In consequence of this manner of living, the country which they inhabited was supposed to be so gloomy, that, to mention a great obscurity, the expre ion of Cimmerian darkne has proverbially been used. Homer, according to Plutarch, drew his images of hell and Pluto from this gloomy and dismal country, where also Virgil and Ovid have placed the Styx, the Phlegethon, and all the dreadful abodes of the infernal regions. Homer , Ody ey , bk. 13 .— Virgil , Æneid bk. 6 .— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 11 , li. 592 , . — Strabo , bk. 5 .