It may readily be conceived that such a king would be pursued by the daggers of assassins; sixteen hundred men were condemned to death by the royal courts of inquisition as having been implicated in such conspiracies.
Lucullus and the Fleet on the Asiatic Coast While the king was thus by his suicidal fury provoking his temporary subjects to rise in arms against him, he was at the same time hard pressed by the Romans in Asia, both by sea and by land.
Lucullus, after the failure of his attempt to lead forth the Egyptian fleet against Mithradates, had with better success repeated his efforts to procure vessels of war in the Syrian maritime towns, and reinforced his nascent fleet in the ports of Cyprus, Pamphylia, and Rhodes till he found himself strong enough to proceed to the attack.
He dexterously avoided measuring himself against superior forces and yet obtained no inconsiderable advantages.

The Cnidian island and peninsula were occupied by him, Samos was assailed, Colophon and Chios were wrested from the enemy.
Flaccus Arrives in Asia Fimbria Fimbria's Victory at Miletopolis Perilous Position of Mithradates Meanwhile Flaccus had proceeded with his army through Macedonia and Thrace to Byzantium, and thence, passing the straits, had reached Chalcedon (end of 668).

There a military insurrection broke out against the general, ostensibly because he embezzled the spoil from the soldiers.

The soul of it was one of the chief officers of the army, a man whose name had become a proverb in Rome for a true mob-orator, Gaius Flavius Fimbria, who, after having differed with his commander-in-chief, transferred the demagogic practices which he had begun in the Forum to the camp.

Flaccus was deposed by the army and soon afterwards put to death at Nicomedia, not far from Chalcedon; Fimbria was installed by decree of the soldiers in his stead.