83 B. C.), where he terminated the rule of the house
of Seleucus, and of Greater Cappadocia.

*The command of Lucullus and Cotta, 74 B. C.* In 75 B. C. occurred the
death of Nicomedes III, King of Bithynia, who left his kingdom to the
Roman people. The Senate accepted the inheritance and made Bithynia a
province, but Mithradates championed the claims of a son of Nicomedes and
determined to dispute the possession of Bithynia with the Romans. He had
raised an efficient army and navy, was leagued with the pirates, and in
alliance with Sertorius, who supplied him with officers and recognized his
claims to Bithynia and other districts in Asia Minor. Rome was threatened
with another serious war. One of the senatorial faction, the consul Lucius
Lucullus, contrived to have assigned to himself by a senatorial decree the
provinces of Cilicia and Asia with command of the main operations against
Mithradates, while his colleague Cotta received Bithynia and a fleet to
guard the Hellespont. At the same time a praetor, Marcus Antonius, was
given an extraordinary command against the pirates with an unlimited
_imperium_ over the Mediterranean Sea and its coast. However, he proved
utterly incompetent, was defeated in an attack upon Crete, and died there.

*Siege of Cyzicus, 74-3 B. C.* Early in 74 B. C., Mithradates invaded
Bithynia. There he was encountered by Cotta, whom he defeated and
blockaded in Chalcedon. Thereupon he invaded Asia and laid siege to
Cyzicus. But Lucullus cut off his communications and in the ensuing winter
he was forced to raise the siege and retire with heavy losses into
Bithynia. The following year a fleet which Lucullus had raised defeated
that of Mithradates. This enabled the Romans to recover Bithynia and
invade Pontus. In 72 B. C. Lucullus defeated Mithradates and forced him to
take refuge in Armenia. In the course of this and the two following years
he completed the subjugation of Pontus by the systematic reduction of its
fortified cities. Cotta undertook the siege of Heraclea in Bithynia and
upon its fall in 71 B. C. returned to Rome. The winter of 71-70 B. C.
Lucullus spent in Asia reorganizing the financial situation. There the
cities were laboring under a frightful burden of indebtedness to Roman
bankers and taxgatherers which had its origin in the exactions of Sulla.
Lucullus interfered on behalf of the provincials and by reducing the
accumulated interest on their debts enabled them to pay off their
obli