The mountainous interior of Asia minor was the land where the ancient Hittite Kingdom once thrived. The coasts of Asia minor had been colonized by the Greeks since the 8th century B.C., and the legendary city of Troy, conquered and destroyed by the ancient Greeks, had been located in northwestern Asia minor, near the straits of the Dardanelles. Asia minor was conquered by Persia in the fifth century B.C., and was later conquered by Alexander the Great almost two centuries later. By the time Rome became involved in the affairs of the region, the land was divided between a number of feuding Hellenized kingdoms that had gradually thrown off the rule of Alexander's successor kingdom, the Seleucids of Syria.
Roman stakes in the region were suddenly and dramatically increased when, in 129 B.C., the King of Pergamum died and left his entire kingdom as a bequest to Rome. At first skeptical about the gift, the Roman senate eventually appointed governors who exploited the legendary wealth of the kingdom through such severe taxation that the province was soon in revolt.
Mithridates IV Eupator, King of Pontus, had been building up his power in eastern Asia minor, having taken control of Paphlagonia, Cappadocia and the Crimea (Chersonesus Taurica). Mithridates fancied himself a messiah of Asia, exploiting popular beliefs and prophecies that a wise ruler would rise from the east to break the power of Rome. He took advantage of the discontent in Pergamum to wage war on Rome and its ally Bithynia in 88 B.C., and quickly overran all of western Asia minor. Once in control of Pergamum, he massacred some 80,000 Roman merchants, officials and colonists, sending shockwaves of grief and outrage throughout Rome.
The Romans responded by sending legions under the command of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who defeated forces of Mithridates that had landed in Greece. In the meanwhile, civil war had erupted in Rome, a number of cities in Italy had risen up in revolt, and Sulla was anxious to turn homeward. Mithridates, realizing that he was not ready yet to face the full fury of the Roman legions, decided not to press his luck, and a hasty peace was made.
Rome and Mithridates soon clashed in two more wars. The Second War was inconclusive. In the Third Mithridatic War, King Tigranes of Armenia joined forces with Mithridates to drive the Romans out of Asia once and for all. After some false starts, and after finding themselves entangled in a futile guerilla war in the mountains of Armenia, the Romans sent the brilliant general Gnaeus Pompeius ("Pompey the Great") east with new legions, granting him command of all the Roman forces in Asia.
Pompey soon triumphed over Mithridates and made peace with Tigranes. His settlement made Bithynia, Pergamum (Asia), Cilicia (including Pamphylia and Isauria) and Syria Roman provinces. Pontus, Cappadocia, Galatia, Lycia and Judaea were made client states of Rome. His campaign and the new order that emerged from it essentially established the status quo and the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire that was to remain in place until the fall of Rome.
Eventually, the Asian client states were all absorbed as Roman provinces: Chersonesus Taurica in 47 B.C., Galatia in 25 B.C., Cappadocia in 17 A.D., Lycia in 43 A.D., and Pontus in 63 A.D. After the fall of the western Roman Empire, Asia minor remained part of the Byzantine Empire until the arrival of the Turks in the eleventh century.