Commagene was originally a small Syro-Hittite kingdom, located in modern south-central Turkey, with its capital at Samosata (modern Samsat, near the Euphrates). It was first mentioned in Assyrian texts as "Kummuhu", which was normally an ally of Assyria, but eventually annexed as a province in 708 BC under Sargon II. The Achaemenid Empire then conquered Commagene in the 6th century BC and Alexander the Great conquered the territory in the 4th century BC. After the breakup of the Empire of Alexander the Great, the region became part of the Hellenistic Seleucids, and Commagene emerged in about 163 BC as a state and province in the Greco-Syrian Seleucid Empire. Perhaps Commagene was part of the kingdom of Armenia in the early Hellenistic period, and was possibly annexed to the Seleucid kingdom soon after Armenia's conquest