[citation needed][dubious – discuss] Subsequently, historians noticed that the conduct of the war fell into three logical subdivisions.

Mithridates incorporated the Kingdom of Cappadocia by marrying his sister to its king before killing him and installing his young nephew, Ariarathes the IX, on the throne as a puppet ruler.

[1] Mithridates supported a rival claimant to the throne of Bithynia, Socrates Chrestus, as another puppet ruler after overthrowing his half-brother, Nicomedes the IV.

[2] Rival claimants to these thrones fled to the Roman Senate to plead their cases over the inheritance disputes and influence of Pontus in their kingdoms.

[4] Mithridates did not oppose the Roman legation and by the fall of 90 BC both Nicomedes the IV and Ariobarzanes the I were installed as kings of their respective countries without any fighting.

Before the legation left, however, Aquillius urged the kings to attack Mithridates to repay loans they had taken out previously to bribe senators in supporting their claims.

Nicomedes launched raids into Pontic territory by the spring of 89 BC which led to Mithridates sending delegates to Rome in response to the Roman client state's attacks.

The First Mithridatic War (89–85 BC) resulted from Mithridates sending an army into the Roman ally of Cappadocia to remove its senate-supported king.

One of the Consuls for the year, Sulla, was dispatched with 5 legions after 18 months of preparations in 87 BC, the first major force sent by Rome since the start of the war.

The Second Mithridatic War (83–81 BC) began when Roman forces attacked the Kingdom of Pontus, reigniting conflict between Rome and Mithridates.

The Roman forces were commanded by Lucius Licinius Murena who had served as Sulla's legate and was stationed in the region to oversee its defense.

[23] This peace continued until 74 BC when Mithridates invaded Roman territory in Asia Minor sparking the Third Mithridatic War.

[24] Mithridates launched the invasion around the time that Quintus Sertorius, an old supporter of Gaius Marius's Populist faction who still opposed the senate, was in the middle of a major revolt against Rome in Hispania.

[28] Cotta's force was reduced to a fraction of what it once was, giving Mithridates impunity to take the nearby cities of Nicaea, Lampsacus, Nicomedia, and Apameia.

A Pontic navy led by Marcus Marius, a supporter of Sertorius and advisor to Mithridates, set sail into the Aegean Sea.

Lucullus would fight the navy at an island near Lemnos, where it was camped, destroying or capturing 32 ships and taking Marius prisoner.

[32] In 72 BC, Lucullus marched through Galatia into the Pontic Heartland without fighting the native Galatians who let the Roman force pass without engaging them.

[39] Legate Gaius Valerius Triarius, who was bringing troops to reinforce Lucullus at the siege of Nisibis, took command of Roman forces in Pontus to fight the sudden return of Mithridates.

[41] Lucullus convinced his troops to stay loyal but agreed to march back to Asia Minor and only protect the Roman provinces rather than invading Pontus or Armenia.

In the following year, 66 BC, the Senate granted Gnaeus Pompey, one of the influential generals of Rome, command of Roman forces in the east to end the war.

[43] Mithridates crossed the Black Sea in the following year, 65 BC, to the Crimean lands that his eldest son, Machares, held with the support of Rome.

[45] By 64 BC, Pompey had established a naval blockade of Bosporan Crimea to wear down Mithridates, before he marched south into Syria where Armenia held lands, he seized important cities across the region like Antioch.

[46] In 63 BC, he took cities like Damascus before involving himself in a civil war in Judea to establish it as a client state under Rome.

Livy was a close friend of Augustus, to whom he read his work by parts, which means that he had access to records and writings at Rome.

Its nature sparked the interest of the emperor immediately (he had eyes and ears everywhere), who made it a point to be Octavian, not Augustus, to the circle of his friends (he often found duty tedious and debilitating).

The Third Mithridatic War was going so badly that the Senators of both parties combined to get the Lex Manilia passed by the Tribal Assembly removing command of the east from Lucullus and others and giving it instead to Pompey.

The words of the Periocha are C. Manilius tribunus plebis magna indignatione nobilitatis legem tulit, ut Pompeio Mithridaticum bellum mandaretur, "Gaius Manilius, Tribune of the People, carried the law despite the great indignation of the nobility that the Mithridatic War be mandated to Pompey".

As such it began with the declaration of war by the Senate in 88 BC after the Asiatic Vespers (modern term), the casus belli.

Tiring of this political game the ad hoc peace party bypassed the Senate, not only preempting the mandate but also giving to Pompey the power himself to declare it at an end.

Some monumental inscriptions of the times in Greece shed some light on the Roman command structure during First Mithridatic War.