In his reign the Cimmerians, driven from their homes by the nomads of Scythia, entered Asia and captured Sardis.
Varro relates that there were ten Sibyls,—the first of the Persians, the second the Libyan, the third the Delphian, the fourth the Cimmerian.
On their mysterious shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. The Great Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, dwelling far away, the most distant of men, and the Cimmerians, covered with darkness and cloud, where baleful night is spread over timid mortals..
the darkness of antiquated barbarism, in which he buries himself like a mole, to throw up the barren hillocks of his Cimmerian labours.
The source of man’s unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature.... To remove this Cimmerian darkness... requires the clue of Ariadne.