Our first knowledge of the peoples of Asia Minor is from the Homeric poems (about 900 B.C.). The _Chalybeans_ were in Pontus; west of them, the _Amazonians_ and _Paphlagonians_; west of these, the _Mysians_; on the Hellespont, small tribes related to the _Trojans_; on the Ægean, the _Dardanians_ and the _Trojans_ (on the north), the _Carians_ and the _Lycians_ (on the south); on the north-east of these last, the _Phrygians_. A large portion of the early inhabitants of Asia Minor were _Semitic_, and closely related to the Syrians. Semitic divinities were worshiped; a goddess, _Mylitta_, under other names, was adored in Pontus, at Ephesus, in Phrygia, and in Lydia. The Lydians were of the Semitic race. _Cybele_, the female divinity whom they served, was the same deity whose altars were at Babylon, Nineveh, and Tyre. The rulers of the dynasty of the _Mermnadæ, Gyges_ and his successors, spread the Lydian dominion until it extended to the Hellespont, and included Mysia and Phrygia. _Alyattes_ was able to extirpate the Cimmerian hordes from the Sea of Azoff, who had overrun the western part of Asia Minor, and to make the Halys his eastern boundary. Gyges had been slain in the contest with those fierce barbarians, called in the Old Testament _Gomer_. At first he had sought help from the Assyrians, but he broke away from this dependence. Liberated from the troubles of the Scythian irruption, _Cyaxares_ formed an alliance with _Nabopolassar_, the viceroy in Babylon, who had revolted, and gained his independence. The Median ruler had subdued Armenia, and established his control as far as the Halys, making a treaty with Lydia. Now ensued the desperate conflict on which hung the fate of the Assyrian Empire. Nineveh was taken (606 B.C.) by the Medes under _Cyaxares_, and the Babylonians under _Nebuchadnezzar_, the son of Nabopolassar. The Grecian story of Sardanapalus burning himself on a lofty bier, is a myth. Assyria was divided by the _Tigris_ between the _Medes_ and _Babylonians._ THE THREE POWERS: EGYPT.--On the fall of Nineveh, there were three principal powers left on the stage of action, which were bound together by treaty, _Lydia, Media,_ and _Babylon._ Egypt proved itself unable to cope with Babylonian power. _Necho,_ during the siege of Nineveh, had attacked Syria, and defeated the Jews on the plain of Esdraelon, where king _Josiah_ was slain. He dethroned _Jehoahaz,_ Josiah's son, and enthroned _Jehoiakim_ in his stead. But when, in 605 B.C., he confronted Nebuchadnezzar at _Carchemish,_ and was defeated, he was compelled to give up Syria, and to retire within the boundaries of Egypt. III. THE NEW BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.