title: The Mithridatic Wars, 89–66 <scp>BC</scp>
abstract: Abstract After Mithridates, king of Pontus, intervened in Cappadocia, the Bithynians and Cappadocians appealed to the Senate. In 89 bc the Senate's representative was persuaded by Nicomedes of Bithynia to provoke a war, but the combined Roman and Bithynian forces were defeated. Disaffected Greek states flocked to Mithridates. In the campaigns of the First Mithridatic War, the Romans, led by the renegade general Sulla, drove the Pontic forces out of Greece. A brief peace was concluded in 85, and 