Mithridates VI Eupator

Mithridates VI Eupator (c.132-63 bc), king of Pontus (c. 121-63), in what is now north-eastern Turkey. He succeeded his father, Mithridates V, and began his career of conquest by seizing Colchis and the Crimea from the Scythians. His attempts to cement his control in Paphlagonia and Cappadocia were thwarted by Rome, and a plot to depose Nicomedes III of Bithynia was unsuccessful. Raids on Pontic territory in 88 bc by Nicomedes, instigated by Rome, led to the First Mithradatic War. Mithridates occupied the Roman Province of Asia Minor and then advanced towards Greece, but between 86 bc and 85 bc he was defeated both in Asia Minor and Greece by the Roman generals Gaius Flavius Fimbria and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. The Second Mithradatic War began with a Roman invasion of Pontus in 83 bc that was repelled in 82 bc. Rome's attempt to annex Bithynia led to the Third Mithradatic War. Mithridates occupied Bithynia, but in 73 bc his army was crushed by the Roman commander Lucius Licinius Lucullus. In 66 bc Pompey the Great succeeded to the Roman command and inflicted a final defeat on Mithridates, who had regained much of his territory. Mithridates then devised a plan for the invasion of Italy from the north, but his troops deserted to his son, Pharnaces, and Mithridates committed suicide.