Nor did he make himself better liked by his new subjects in Asia. They found that in exchanging masters they had lost much more than they had gained. The Romans were often oppressive, but they had at least some kind of system, and were, in theory at least, subject to law; the King was a capricious tyrant, whose whims, often as cruel as they were strange, had to be instantaneously humoured under pain of death or torture. The end was that Mithradates was beaten everywhere. An army which he had sent into Greece was destroyed. His arms were equally unsuccessful in Asia. An attempt to make common cause with Sulla's political opponents--some of the democratic leaders were actually in arms--came to nothing. Finally, in 84 peace was made. The King had to give up all his conquests, to surrender for punishments the men who had taken a leading part in the massacre, and to pay a war indemnity of 20,000 talents.[37] After a somewhat uneasy peace of ten years war broke out again. Each side was suspicious of the other. Mithradates had steadily employed himself in increasing his dominions in every direction where he did not come into actual collision with Rome. Rome, on the other hand, had a way of receiving legacies of kingdoms, very much to the annoyance of those who conceived themselves to have a better title to the inheritance. In 75 B.C., for instance, she took possession of Bithynia, which Mithradates had always coveted, in accordance with the will of Nicomedes III. The King naturally took offence at this proceeding, and as he saw at the same time a prospect of taking his great enemy at a disadvantage, he declared war. He hoped that Sertorius in Spain would make a diversion in his favour, and he also looked for help from the pirates who swarmed in the Mediterranean. These expectations were but partially fulfilled. Sertorius was very near the end of his career, and could be practically ignored. Mithradates won a few successes here and there, but he had a very able soldier, Lucullus, to contend with. After a few months' fighting he had to fly from his kingdom and take refuge with his son-in-law, Tigranes, King of Armenia.