GOMER, the eldest son of Japhet, and an ally of Gog, has usually, since Calmet's time, been identified with those Cimmerii who, originally inhabiting the districts to the n.e. and n. of the Black sea and sea of Azof,- at an early period began to penetrate as far as Asia Minor, and in ).he 7th c. B.C. overran Lydia. though without leaving per manent traces of their presence. This identification, however, is to be met with in none of the older writers. Josephus understands the Galatians of northern Phrygia lc be intended; and Gimmeri or Gamir, was in the language of the ancient Armenians, a usual designation for their neighbors the Cappadocians. It is not impossible that an intimate ethnological connection between tin Cappadocians of Kephalion and the Cimmerians of Homer may ultimately be established; but meanwhile it is important to observe that the three sons of Gomm., as named in Gen. x. 2, admit of a tolerably definite localization. Ashkenaz, who has sometimes been identified with the Germans,
is almost certainly the same as the Ascanians, a very ancient tribe of northern Phrygia. Riphath has nothing to do with the Rhiptean mountains, with the Carpathians, or with Niphates, but, as Josephus has pointed out, is to be identified with Paphlagonia; as Bochart has shown, the name probably survives in the designation of a river in Bithrnia, and in a district situated on the Thracian Bosphorus. Although Togarmah is by Josephus interpreted as equivalent to Phrygia, there is a considerable ffmount of ancient testimony in favor of its identification with Armenia. It is possible that the same root is actually at the basis of the two words; at all events the connection is assumed in the account which the Armenians themselves give of their legendary history.