The Treri lived in northwest
Thrace, in the region of
Serdica (now the
Bulgarian capital city of Sofia). The Treri of the Serdica region were later absorbed by the
Triballi during this latter tribe's eastward migration and disappeared from history afterwards.[1]
In Anatolia
At some point in the 7th century BCE, a portion of the Treres migrated across the
Thracian Bosporus and invaded
Anatolia.[2] By the later part of the 7th century BCE, these Treres were nomadising in Western Asia along with the
Cimmerians.[3]
In 637 BCE, the Treres, under their king Kōbos (
Ancient Greek: Κωβος;
Latin: Cobus) and in alliance with the Cimmerians and the
Lycians, attacked the
Anatolian kingdom of
Lydia during the seventh year of the reign of the Lydian king
Ardys.[4] They defeated the
Lydians and captured their capital of Sardis except for its citadel, and Ardys might have been killed in this attack.[5] Ardys's son and successor,
Sadyattes, might possibly also have been killed in another Cimmerian attack on Lydia in 635 BCE.[5]
Soon after 635 BCE, with the approval of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was an ally of Lydia as well as the then superpower in Western Asia,[6] and in alliance with the Lydians,[7] the
Scythians under their king
Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia[8] until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BCE.[4] This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, whom
Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Sadyattes’s son and Ardys’s grandson, the Lydian king
Alyattes, whom
Herodotus of Halicarnassus and
Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.[9][10]