Psammetikhos had seized the opportunity of shaking off the yoke of the foreigner, and with the help of the troops sent by Gyges from Lydia, had driven out the Assyrian garrisons and overcome his brother satraps.
Assur-bani-pal was in no position to punish him.

The war with Elam and the revolt of Babylonia had drained the country of its fighting men and the treasury of its resources.

And a new and formidable enemy had appeared on the scene.

The Scyths had followed closely on the footsteps of the Kimmerians, and were now pouring into Asia like locusts, and ravaging everything in their path.

The earlier chapters of Jeremiah are darkened by the horrors of the Scythian invasion of Palestine, and Assur-bani-pal refers with a sigh of relief to the death of that "limb of Satan," the Scythian king Tugdamme or Lygdamis.