Pompey founds (according to tradition), the town…

Bithynia has come increasingly under the control of Rome, although the decade following the restoration of Nicomedes IV has been relatively peaceful.

Young Gaius Julius Caesar, sent in 80 BCE, to raise a fleet using Bithynia's resources, had dallied so long with the King that a rumor of a homosexual relationship had surfaced, leading to the disparaging title, "the Queen of Bithynia", an allegation of which Caesar's political enemies will make much use later in his life.

Nicomedes, like Attalus of Pergamon, bequeaths his entire kingdom to Romei n 74 BCE as one of his last acts as king of Bithynia.

The Roman Senate quickly votes it as a new province.

Rome's old enemy Mithridates VI has other plans for Bithynia, however, and Nicomedes’ death and bequest lead directly to the Third Mithridatic War.

The Romans, after the brief so-called Second Mithridatic War ended in 82 BCE without any territorial gains by either side, had begun securing the coastal region of Lycia and Pamphylia from pirates and established Roman control over Pisidia and Lycaonia.

The Cilician pirates have not been completely defeated however, and Mithridates signs an alliance with them.

He is also allied with the government of Quintus Sertorius in Spain and with his help reorganizes some of his troops in the Roman legionary pattern with short stabbing swords.

In joining those two threats into a unity much larger than its parts, Mithridates has the serious potential of overturning Roman power.

Mithridates has meanwhile forged a strong alliance of his son-in-law, Tigranes, under whom the country has become the strongest state in the Roman East.

At its height, the Armenian Empire extends from the Pontic Alps (in modern northeastern Turkey) to Mesopotamia, and from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.

Tigranes, apparently invading territories as far away as Ecbatana, has taken the title king of kings which, at this time, according to their coins, even the Parthian kings do not assume.

He is called "Tigranes the Great" by many Western historians and writers, such as Plutarch.

The "King of Kings" never appears in public without having four kings attending him.

Cicero, referring to his success in the east, said that he "made the Republic of Rome tremble before the prowess of his arms.”

Sulla had dedicated his memoirs to Lucullus, and upon his death made him guardian of his son Faustus, preferring Lucullus over Pompey.

In 74, he becomes consul (along with Marcus Aurelius Cotta, Julius Caesar's uncle), and defends Sulla's constitution from the efforts of Lucius Quinctius.

Initially, he drew Cisalpine Gaul in the lots at the start of his consulship as his proconsular command after his year as consul was done, but he gets himself appointed governor of Cilicia after its governor dies, so as to also receive the Eastern command in the escalating situation in the east, brought about by the acquisition of the new province of Bithynia and the subsequent renewal of conflict with King Mithridates VI of Pontus, who had invaded that country.

Disorders lead Rome to create a regular province out of Cyrenaica in 74, twenty-two years after its acceptance of the bequest of Ptolemy Apion.

Cotta, joined by Lucullus at Nicomedia in 73 BCE, is assigned the task of securing Lucullus' rear by taking the town of Heraclea, which Mithridates has reinforced with four thousand troops.

After reducing the Pontic coast, Cotta begins besieging Heraclea.

Mithridates, having long presumed the Kingdom of Bithynia for himself, invades the country in 73 BCE, putting the small Roman garrison under pressure and isolating them from assistance.

Deiotarus, tetrarch of the Tolistobogii (of western Galatia, now in western Turkey), drives the invading Pontic troops of Mithridates from Phrygia at the beginning of the Third Mithridatic War.

Mithridates, launching an attack at the same time as the revolt by Sertorius is sweeping through the Spanish provinces, is initially virtually unopposed.

The Senate responds by sending the consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus to Cilicia to deal with the Pontic threat.

The only other possible general for such an important command, Pompey, is in Gaul, marching to Hispania to help crush the revolt led by Sertorius.

Marcus Aurelius Cotta, having received Bithynia and Pontus as his proconsular command, had taken charge of a fleet to protect his province, having been dispatched to the east towards the end of his period as consul.

Lucullus, upon arrival in Cilicia and immediately sets forth to confront the Pontic army in Bithynia.

The original plan was that Cotta should tie down Mithridates' fleet, while Lucullus attacked by land.

Cotta had therefore been ordered to station his fleet at Chalcedon, while Lucullus marches through Phrygia with the intention of invading Pontus.

Lucullus has not advanced far when news comes through that Mithridates has made a rapid march westward, attacked Cotta, and forced him to flee behind the walls of Chalcedon.

Sixty-four Roman ships have been captured or burnt, and Cotta has lost three thousand men.

Here Cotta is forced to remain until Lucullus can to come to his rescue.

Lucullus harries the army of Mithridates and kills many of his soldiers, then turns to the sea and raises a fleet among the Greek cities of Asia.

With this fleet he defeats the enemy's fleet off Ilium and then off Lemnos.

Cotta, having made his way to Nicomedia, watches in frustration as Mithridates, learning that his fleet has been destroyed by Lucullus, escapes the city and sails down the Bosporus to the town of Heraclea Pontica.