Following the Roman general Lucullus ' defeat of both Mithridates and Tigranes in 69 BC, a rump Seleucid kingdom was restored under Antiochus XIII.

At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lucullus and Longinus ( or, less frequently, year 681 Ab urbe condita ).

In response to the first threat, Rome's best general, Lucius Licinius Lucullus ( consul in 74 BC ), was sent to defeat Mithridates, followed shortly by his brother Varro Lucullus ( consul in 73 BC ).

Another theory is that it was built for another native, Sallustius Lucullus, a Roman governor of Britain of the late 1st century who may have been the son of the British prince Adminius.

If the palace was designed for Lucullus, then it may have only been in use for a few years, for the Roman historian Suetonius records that Lucullus was executed by the delusional emperor Domitian in or shortly after AD 93.

At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lucullus and Cotta ( or, less frequently, year 680 Ab urbe condita ).

At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lucullus and Albinus ( or, less frequently, year 603 Ab urbe condita ).

The name was soon changed to Apollonia, on account of a temple dedicated to Apollo in the town, containing a famous colossal statue of the god Apollo by Calamis, 30 cubits high, transported later to Rome by Lucullus and placed in the Capitol.

His mother was Porcia Catones, sister of Cato the Younger and half-sister of the two Servilias ; Servilia Caepionis Major ( Caesar's mistress ) and Servilia Caepionis Minor ( second wife of Lucullus ).

Cyzicus was held for the Romans against King Mithridates VI of Pontus who besieged it with 300, 000 men in 74 BC, but it withstood him stoutly, and the siege was raised by Lucullus: the loyalty of the city was rewarded by an extension of territory and other privileges.

Felicitas was unknown before the mid-2nd century BC, when a temple was dedicated to her in the Velabrum in the Campus Martius by Lucius Licinius Lucullus, using booty from his 151 – 150 BC campaign in Spain.

Selene was eventually captured and killed by Tigranes, but after the latter's defeat by Pompey, the residents of Antioch hailed Antiochus XIII as king, and Lucius Lucullus approved his appointment as client ruler of Syria ( 69 BC ).

Tigranes was, according to Keaveney, so impressed by Mithrobazanes ' courage that he appointed Mithrobazanes to command an army against Lucullus – Mithrobazanes was however defeated and killed.

On October 6, 69 BCE, Tigranes ' much larger force was decisively defeated by the Roman army under Lucullus in the Battle of Tigranocerta.

Once again, both Mithridates and Tigranes evaded capture by the victorious Romans. However, the Armenian historians claim, that Romans lost the battle of Artaxata and Lucullus ' following withdrawal from the Kingdom of Armenia in reality was an escape due to above-mentioned defeat.

With Lucullus ' troops now refusing to obey his commands, but agreeing to defend positions from attack, the senate sent Gnaeus Pompey to recall Lucullus to Rome and take over his command.

In 66 BC with the majority of Lucullus ' troops now openly refusing to obey his commands, but agreeing to defend Roman positions from attack, the senate sent Pompey to take over Lucullus ' command at which point Lucullus returned to Rome.

When Phraates III came to the throne in 70 BC, the Roman general Lucullus was preparing to attack Tigranes the Great, king of Armenia, who was supreme in western Asia and had wrested Mesopotamia and several vassal states from Parthia.

Because of Archias ' close association with Lucullus, the case was probably a political attack directed at the politician by one of his many enemies.

Once again Tigranes was provoked to attack and in a major battle at the Aratsani River Lucullus was heavily defeated by the Armenian army.

At the time Archelaus had command of the sea, so Sulla sent Lucullus to raise a fleet from the remaining Roman allies in the eastern Mediterranean.

Lucullus returned to Rome from the east with so much captured booty that the whole could not be fully accounted, and poured enormous sums into private building, husbandry and even aquaculture projects which shocked and amazed his contemporaries by their magnitude.

Lucullus was left with no choice but to retreat to Pontus and Cappadocia and did so in the spring of 67 B. C.

Memmius delivered at least four speeches de triumpho Luculli Asiatico, and the antagonism towards Lucullus aroused by the Pompeians proved so effective that the enabling law ( lex curiata ) required to hold a triumph was delayed for three years.

" Cowan and Hook suggest that Lucullus would have deployed the Romans in a simplex acies, that is to say a single line, so making the frontage of the army as wide as possible as a counter to the cavalry.

The sources do agree that Romulus took up residence in the Lucullan Villa, an ancient castle originally built by Lucullus in Campania.

He took part in the Third Mithridatic War under his brother-in-law, Lucullus.

Others, such as Lucullus, took on the role of librarian by lending out scrolls in their collection to those who lacked the means to have their own collections.

Two other notable transactions took place in 76 or 75 BC following Lucullus ' return from Africa, his marriage to Claudia the youngest daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, and his purchase of the Marian hill top villa at Cape Misenum from Sulla's wretchedly avaricious eldest daughter Cornelia.

A major battle took place near the River Arsanias, where Lucullus once again routed the Armenian royal army.

As Plutarch pointed out, " Lucullus the first Roman who carried an army over Taurus, passed the Tigris, took and burnt the royal palaces of Asia in the sight of the kings, Tigranocerta, Cabira, Sinope, and Nisibis, seizing and overwhelming the northern parts as far as the Phasis, the east as far as Media, and making the South and Red Sea his own through the kings of the Arabians.

Lucullus took most of the gold and silver from the melted-down statues, pots, cups and other valuable metals and precious stones.

He took several of his troops downriver, where the river was the easiest to ford, and at one moment, Tigranes believed that this move meant Lucullus was withdrawing from the battlefield.

* 68 BC – Battle of Artaxata: Lucullus averts the bad omen of this day by defeating Tigranes the Great of Armenia.

* October 6 – Lucius Lucullus defeats Tigranes II of Armenia in the Battle of Artaxata.

* Roman troops under Lucius Lucullus defeat the army of Tigranes II of Armenia in the Battle of Tigranocerta, and capture Tigranocerta, capital of Armenia.

Mithridates fled to Armenia, rules by his son-in-law Tigranes, who refuses to turn his father-in-law in to Lucius Lucullus.

The Roman commander, Lucullus, demanded the expulsion of Mithridates from Armenia – to comply with such a demand would be, in effect, to accept the status of vassal to Rome and this Tigranes refused.

After this defeat Tigranes withdrew north to Armenia to regroup which left Lucullus free to put Tigranocerta under siege.

When Tigranes had gathered a large army he returned to confront Lucullus.

Antiochus is first mentioned in the ancient sources in 69 BC, when the Roman Lucullus campaign against Armenian King Tigranes the Great.

In 69-68 BC Lucullus, having overcome Armenian ruler Tigranes II, approached the borders of Caucasian Albania and was succeeded by Pompey.

During the war, Armenian King Tigranes the Great takes control of Syria and prepares to invade Judea and Jerusalem but has to retreat following an invasion of Armenia by Lucullus.

In the letter conveyed by Appius, Lucullus addressed Tigranes simply as " king " ( basileus ), something received as an insult, and probably intended as such in order to provoke the proud Armenian monarch to war.

Tigranes returned from mopping up a Seleucid rebellion in Syria with an experienced army which Lucullus nonetheless annihilated at the battle of Tigranocerta.

Tigranes retired to the northern regions of his kingdom to gather another army and defend his hereditary capital of Artaxata, while Lucullus moved off south-eastwards to the kingdom of the Kurds ( Korduene ) on the frontiers of the Armenian and Parthian empires.

In the summer of 68 BC Lucullus resumed the war against Tigranes, crossing the Anti-Taurus Range in a long march through very difficult mountain country directed at the old Armenian capital Artaxata.

That winter Lucullus left his army at Nisibis and taking a small, but apparently highly mobile, escort journeyed to Syria in an attempt to permanently exclude Tigranes from all his southern possessions.

In addition Mithridates had been sent back to Pontus by Tigranes during the same winter, and made some headway against the garrison force Lucullus had left there under his legates Sornatius Barba and Fabius Hadrianus.

A Roman force under Lucius Lucullus defeated Tigranes at the Battle of Tigranocerta nearby in 69 BC, and afterwards sacked the city, sending many of the people back to their original homes.

However, in 69 the Roman general Lucullus invaded Armenia, defeated Tigranes ' forces at the outskirts of Tigranakert, and sacked the new capital.