That some went to the east as well as to the west seems probable, for we find not long afterwards, in the reign of Hammurabi, 2123-2061 /B.C./, bands of steppe-folk on the Iranian plateau, who had already tamed the horse.[229] These entered Mesopotamia and established the Kassite dynasty about 1760 /B.C./,[230] and were the first to introduce the horse into the valley of the Tigris.[231] Whether or no other bands passed further to the eastward we have no positive evidence, but, as we have seen, there seem to be reasons for suspecting that some reached Tobolsk,[232] and there were at one time fair people dwelling in the upper basin of the Yenesei[233]. It seems probable that it is to this period that we must attribute this easterly movement. As it seems probable that the Mitanni barons, who were lording it over eastern Armenia, were of the same stock as the Kassites, we may attribute their arrival south of the Caspian to the same causes. Geographical considerations, too, would lead us to suspect that ample pasturage could have been found also among the hills surrounding Balkh. The westward movements I have already dealt with elsewhere,[234] and I need do no more than recapitulate them here. As we have seen, the steppe-folk entered the Tripolje region, and probably occupied this district as far as Breslau. Some of them passed southwards along the western shore of the Euxine, and crossing the Danube, settled in Thrace, where numerous kurgans are to be seen.[235] Others seem to have passed on further south, and eventually reached the Thessalian plain, into which they introduced Dhimini ware and the cult of the horse. It may be that it was the appearance of these strange horsemen in this region which gave rise to the stories of the Centaurs. Some bands of the latter party seem to have separated from the main body and advanced down the Gallipoli peninsula. These, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere, destroyed Hissarlik II., among the ruins of which two of their skulls were found.[236] It may be that these were responsible for the rude villages of Hissarlik III., but it seems more probable that they would have passed on to the grassy steppes in the interior of the Anatolian peninsula. Now the bulk of the people of Asia Minor at this date, as at the present day, were of that eastern Alpine, Anatolian or Armenoid type, best represented by the modern Armenians. These people are not by nature warlike, though they will sometimes fight well to defend their homes; but in no case are they aggressive, unless under the command of a more militaristic type. A few centuries after the events which we have been discussing, we find an aggressive, military power growing up in the peninsula, at first under several chiefs or kings,[237] in which, I think, we may see a military aristocracy. These separate, though perhaps federated, states ultimately coalesced into the great empire of the Khatti or Hittites, who attacked and sacked Babylon in 1746 /B.C./[238]