Tugdamme was Cimmerian

Cimmerians

The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...

 king of the mid-seventh century BC.

Tugdamme's legacy began sometime around 660 BCE. It seems that his first known attacks were against the Greek coastal cities in Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

. In 653 BCE he began to push at the mighty Assyrian Empire during the reign of Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal |Ashur]] is creator of an heir"; 685 BC – c. 627 BC), also spelled Assurbanipal or Ashshurbanipal, was an Assyrian king, the son of Esarhaddon and the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire...

. The Assyrian inscriptions speak of Tugdamme as being the "King of the Saka

Saka

The Saka were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes....

 and Qutium" but the Assyrian inscriptions also call him by the title "Sar Kissati" which means "King of Kish" or "King of the world" which suggests that Tugdamme ruled a vast area of land. Tugdamme would eventually be defeated around 641-640 BCE, but it remains unknown as to who defeated and killed him. The historian Strabo suggest that Madys killed Tugdamme and defeated his forces. Ashurbanipal says Marduk

Marduk

Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...

 defeated Tugdamme, which may suggest that an outside element had defeated Tugdamme and not the Assyrians; this outside element may have been Madys.
According to Fritz Hommel

Fritz Hommel

Fritz Hommel was a German Orientalist.Hommel was born in Ansbach, Germany. He studied in Leipzig and habilitated in 1877 in Munich, where he in 1885 became an extraordinary Professor for semitic languages....

, Tugdamme must have been an ancestor of Sandakhshatra

Sandakhshatra

Sandakhshatra, Sandaksatru or Sandakuru was a Cimmerian king in the late 7th century BC. According to the Assyrian inscriptions provided by Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, he was the son of Tugdamme. These inscriptions show that Tugdamme was killed in battle but that Sandakhshatra survived and thus...

 (whom he identified with Cyaxares

Cyaxares

Cyaxares, Cyaxares the Great or Hvakhshathra , the son of King Phraortes, was the first king of Media. According to Herodotus, Cyaxares, grandson of Deioces, had a far greater military reputation than his father or grandfather, therefore he is often being described as the first official Median...

) and his son Ishtivegu (Astyages

Astyages

Astyages Astyages Astyages (spelled by Herodotus as Ἀστυάγης - Astyages; by Ctesias as Astyigas; by Diodorus as Aspadas; Akkadian: Ištumegu, was the last king of the Median Empire, r...

), implying identification of Tugdamme with Phraortes

Phraortes

Phraortes , son of Diyako, was the second king of the Median Empire....

.