The Romans had already seized his province of Phrygia, and he clearly saw the conflict which must soon take place with the all-absorbing Republic. He determined, therefore, to extend his kingdom to the eastward and northward, thus increasing its power and wealth, so as to make it more nearly a match for its great western antagonist. In seven years he added to his dominions half the shores of the Black Sea, including the Cimme´rian peninsula—now the Crimea—and extending westward to the Dniester. He made alliances with the wild and powerful tribes upon the Danube, and with the kings of Armenia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia. From the last two countries he afterward drove out their hereditary kings, placing his own son on the throne of Cappadocia, and Socrates, a younger brother of Nicomedes III., on that of Bithynia. =94.= The Roman Senate now interfered, and with their favor Nicomedes invaded Pontus. Mithridates marched into Cappadocia and drove out its newly reinstated king; then into Bithynia, where he routed the army of Nicomedes and defeated the Romans. He speedily made himself master of all Asia Minor, except a few towns in the extreme south and west; and from his headquarters at Pergamus, gave orders for a general massacre of all Romans and Italians in Asia. Eighty thousand persons fell in consequence of this atrocious act, but from that moment the tide turned against Mithridates. Two large armies which he sent into Greece, were defeated by Sulla at Chæronea. A great battle in Bithynia was lost by the Pontic generals. Pontus itself was invaded, and its king became a fugitive. Peace was at length made, on terms most humiliating to Mithridates. He surrendered all his conquests, and a fleet of seventy vessels; agreed to pay 2,000 talents; and recognized the kings of Cappadocia and Bithynia, whom he had formerly expelled. The reverses of Mithridates naturally led the subject nations on the Euxine to throw off his yoke. He was preparing to march against them, when a second Roman war was kindled by a sudden and unprovoked aggression of Murena, the general of the Republic in the East. The Romans were defeated on the Halys, and peace was restored, B. C. 82.