GOMER, the eldest son of Japhet (Gen. x. 2), and an ally of Gog (Ezek. xxxviii. 6), 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 Azoff, at an early period began to penetrate as far as to Asia Minor, and in the 7th century b.c. overran Lydia, though without leaving permanent 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 to be intended; and Gimmeri or Garnir was, in the language of the ancient Armenians, a usual designation for their neighbours the Cappadocians (see Dillmann on Gen. x. 2; whose authority is Kephalion, in the Armenian version of the Chronica of Eusebius, ed. Aucher). It is not impossible that an intimate ethnological connexion between the Cappadocians of Kephalion and the Cimmerians of Homer may ultimately be established; but meanwhile it is important to observe that the three sons of Gomer, 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 (cf. Strabo, xii. 4, 5, sqq., and note the juxtaposition in Jer. li. 27). Riphath has nothing to do with the Rhipaean 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 'P77∕‰s, the designation of a river in Bithynia, and in 'Pηβαντlα, a district situated on the Thracian Bosphorus. Although Togarmah is by Josephus interpreted as equivalent to Phrygia, there is a considerable amount of ancient ...

the eldest son of Japheth, by whom a great part of Asia Minor was first peopled, and particularly that extensive tract which was called Phrygia, including the sub-divisions of Mysia, Galatia, Bithynia, Lycaonia, &c. The colonies of Gomer extended into Germany, Gaul, (in both of which traces of the name are preserved,) and Britain, which was undoubtedly peopled from Gaul. Among the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of this island, namely, the Welsh, the words _Kumero_ and _Kumeraeg_, the names of the people and the language, sufficiently point out their origin. In fact, under the names of Cimmerii, Cimbri, Cymrig, Cumbri, Umbri, and Cambri, the tribes of Gomerians extended themselves from the Euxine to the Atlantic, and from Italy to the Baltic; having added to their original names those of Celts, Gauls, Galatæ, and Gaels, superadded.