The origin of Bithynia Kingdom

Bordering the Sea of Marmara, the straits of the Bosporus and the southern shores of the Black Sea and situated opposite Constantinople (Istanbul), Bithynia is today part of Turkey.

Bithynia was anciently inhabited by various nations, differing in their manners, customs, and language, namely the Bebryces, the Caucones, the Dolliones, the Cimmerii, and the Mariandyni occupied the northeast part.

Bithynia was named after the Bithynia one of the warlike Indo-European tribes that had emigrated from Thrace during the first quarter of the first millennium.

Bithynia came under Lydian rule in the seventh century. The province was conquered by the Persians in 546 BC and was included in the satrapy of Phrygia. Bithynia was conquered by the Greeks and the Romans and appeared to have attracted so much attention of its roads and strategic position between the frontiers of the Danube in the north and the Euphrates in the southeast.

The land was occupied by Alexander the Great in 334 BC. In 297 BC Zipoetes, a local Thracian chieftain, freed his country fro Lysimachus and assumed the royal title.
 
Nicomedes I (son of Zipoetes) established the first Dynasty of Bithynian kings and rules from 278 to 250 BC. In 264 BC he founded Nicomedia and made it capital.

Bithynia became a separate province in the 4th century AD, and continued to exist into the 8th century when Slav captives were settled there.
The origin of Bithynia Kingdom 

Kingdom of Aragon

Aragon was a kingdom in northeastern Spain, bordering on southern France and the Pyrenees.

The principality of Aragon had its origins in 1035, when Sancho III of Navarre left part of the region to his illegitimate son, Ramiro I.

Ramiro and his successors, as kings of Aragon, extended the Aragonese territory southward as land was retaken from Moors: Zaragoza, the capital of the Al Moravid kingdom fell to Alfonso I of Aragon.

In 1118 Zaragoza replaced Huesca as the kingdom’s capital. The reconquest of present day Aragon was completed by the late 12th century.

Modern day of Zaragoza

In the 13th - 15th centuries it came to rule Sicily, Sardinia, Naples and Navarre.  In 1469 Ferdinand II married Isabella of Castile, uniting the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile and forming the nucleus of modern Spain.

The old kingdom of Aragon survived as an administrative until 1833, when it was divided into the three provinces of Huesca, Zaragoza and Teruel.
Kingdom of Aragon

The ancient Cimmerians

The Cimmerians were nomadic herdsmen, apparently unacquainted with the horse as a mount, and distinguished for their archery. Its earliest name ‘Cimmeria’ or the ‘land of Cimmerians’ known in the second millennium BC referred to the steppe part of the peninsula stretching eastward as far as the Sea of Azov.

It was said that Cimmerians mixed with Tumulus-Urnfield fusion when they raided through Asia Minor and south to Egypt between BC 15th and 12th centuries.

About 720 BC the Cimmerians were driven out of Europe across the Caucasus Mountains into Asia.  Cimmerians were dislodge form their homeland by incoming Scythians who fought from their horses using bows and arrows as well as swords.

From the south in the year 714 BC, they constituted the Assyrian forces in the Mannaeans fortress along the border.

By the end of the 8th century BC the influx of Cimmerians was felt in all the peripheral states north and east of the Fertile Crescent.

After being defeated by the Assyrians under Sargon II, they headed westward into Asia Minor, where in 696-695 BC they conquered the Phrygians led by King Midas, who reportedly committed suicides after defeat.

Cimmerians then settled into a nomadic life in western Turkey until they were joined by Thracian warriors from Europe. By 626 BC the Cimmerian-Thracian warriors were destroyed by a combined force of Assyrians and Scythians.

The name Crimea, identifying a peninsula extending into the Baltic Sea is derived from the name of Cimmerians.
The ancient Cimmerians