At the end of the third year of the war (669) Sulla was able to take up winter-quarters in Thessaly, with a view to begin the Asiatic campaign in the spring of 670,( 15) for which purpose he gave orders to build ships in the Thessalian ports.
Reaction in Asia Minor against Mithradates Meanwhile the circumstances of Asia Minor also had undergone a material change.

If king Mithradates had once come forward as the liberator of the Hellenes, if he had introduced his rule with the recognition of civic independence and with remission of taxes, they had after this brief ecstasy been but too rapidly and too bitterly undeceived.

He had very soon emerged in his true character, and had begun to exercise a despotism far surpassing the tyranny of the Roman governors--a despotism which drove even the patient inhabitants of Asia Minor to open revolt.

The sultan again resorted to the most violent expedients.

His decrees granted independence to the townships which turned to him, citizenship to the -metoeci-, full remission of debts to the debtors, lands to those that had none, freedom to the slaves; nearly 15,000 such manumitted slaves fought in the army of Archelaus.