Išpakāya

Išpakāya (𒁹𒅖𒉺𒅗𒀀𒀀[5]) is the Akkadian form of the Scythian name *Spakāya, which was a hypocorostic derivation of the word *spaka, meaning "dog.

[8] Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south along the coast of the Black Sea and reached Anatolia, and the Scythians in turn later expanded to the south, following the coast of the Caspian Sea and arrived in the steppes in the Northern Caucasus, from where they expanded into the region of present-day Azerbaijan, where they settled and turned eastern Transcaucasia into their centre of operations in Western Asia until the early 6th century BCE,[9][10][11][12] with this presence in Western Asia being an extension of the Scythian kingdom of the steppes.

[6] During the earliest phase of their presence in Western Asia, Išpakāya's Scythians were allied with the Cimmerians, and the two groups, in alliance with the Medes, who were an Iranic people of Western Asia to whom the Scythians and Cimmerians were distantly related, were threatening the eastern frontier of the kingdom of Urartu during the reign of its king Argishti II, who reigned from 714 to 680 BCE.

During this time, the Scythians under Išpakāya, allied to Rusa II of Urartu, were raiding far in the south until the Assyrian province of Zamua.

[19] Graeco-Roman authors confused Išpakāya with his predecessors and successors, including his possible grandson Madyes, into a single figure by claiming that it was Madyes himself who led the Scythians from Central Asia into chasing the Cimmerians out of their homeland and then defeating the Medes and the legendary Egyptian king Sesostris and imposing their rule over Asia for many years before returning to Scythia.