Bel acknowledged him as his adopted son, and for twelve years Esar-haddon ruled over western Asia by right divine as well as by the right of conquest.
But a terrible danger menaced Assyria and the rest of the civilised Oriental world at the very beginning of his reign.

Sennacherib's conquest of Ellipi, and the wars against Ararat and Minni, had weakened the barriers which protected the Assyrian empire from the incursions of the barbarians of the north.

The Gimirra or Kimmerians, the Gomer of the Old Testament, driven by the Scyths from their seats on the Dniester and the Sea of Azof, suddenly appeared on the horizon of western Asia.
Swarming through the territories of the Minni to the east of Ararat, they swooped down upon the Assyrian frontier, along with other northern nations from Media, Sepharad, and Ashchenaz.

While a body of Kimmerians under Teuspa marched westward, the rest of the allies, under Kastarit or Kyaxares of Karu-Kassi, attacked the fortresses which defended Assyria on the north-east.

At Nineveh all was consternation, and public prayers, accompanied by fasting, were ordered to be offered up for a hundred days and nights to the Sun-god, that he might "forgive the sin" of his people, and avert the dangers that threatened them.