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 ).

Lucullus ' reaction was an attack that was so precipitate that he took Tigranes by surprise.

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.

At about the same time, Lucullus ' very close relative ( probably nephew ) L. Licinius Murena became Sempronia's third husband.

The most obscure part of Lucullus ' public career is the year he spent as Praetor in Rome, followed by his command of Roman Africa, which probably lasted the usual two-year span for this province in the post-Sullan period.

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.

About a decade later the dispossessed Seleucid princes had spent two years in Rome ( probably from Lucullus ' consulate in 74 B. C.

The more daring and ruthless veterans had probably been further encouraged by Lucullus ' relatively mild acceptance of their first open mutiny in the Tablelands the previous autumn: especially the so-called Fimbrian legions who had murdered their commander Lucius Valerius Flaccus at Gaius Flavius Fimbria's instigation eighteen years earlier in the winter of 86-5 B. C.

Lucullus, the cognomen of a branch of the Licinii, which first occurs in history towards the end of the Second Punic War, is probably derived from the praenomen Lucius, of which it appears to be a diminutive.

The most important archeological finding in the area, dating back to Ancient Roman times, during the late Republican Age, is a patrician Roman villa probably belonging to Lucullus.

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

Lucullus was elected Quaestor in winter 89-88 at the same elections in which Sulla was returned as Consul with his friend Quintus Pompeius Rufus, whose son was married to Sulla's eldest daughter, Cornelia.

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

Meanwhile, Sulla's officer Licinius Lucullus pro quaestore defeated a Mithridatic fleet off the island of Tenedos.

Plutarch's biography entirely ignores this period, 78 BC to 75 BC, jumping from Sulla's death to Lucullus ' consulate.

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.

In his absence Pompey had shamefully usurped control over Sulla's children, contrary to the father's testament, and now in Pompeius ' absence the latter's intimate and hereditary political ally Gaius Memmius co-ordinated the opposition to Lucullus ' just claim to a triumph.

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

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

Returning to Rome in 66 BC, Clodius was in serious need of protection from his brother-in-law because of the treason he had committed in Lucullus ' army, and his incestuous relations with Lucullus ' wife, which Lucullus had discovered upon his return the same year and prompted him to divorce her.

He returned to Rome with his commander in 63 in time for the elections at which Murena secured his family's first consulate, mainly with the help of Lucullus ' army veterans and the consul Cicero, Clodius almost certainly having assisted as well.

But he had risked interfering with Lucullus ' army in the east directly in the interests of Pompey, who had not lifted a finger to help him, despite being locked in serious political dispute with the Luculli brothers.

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.

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

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.

However in his absence his authority over his army at Nisibis was seriously undermined by the youngest and wildest of the Claudian brothers, Publius Clodius Pulcher, apparently acting in the interests of Pompey, who was eager to succeed Lucullus in the Mithridatic War command.

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.

* I: The King's Gambit ( 70 BC ) — Decius uncovers a plot to subvert Lucullus ' army in the war against Mithridates.

He then assumed the command of the army and obtained several successes against Mithridates VI, whom he shut up in Pitane on the coast of Aeolis, and would undoubtedly have captured him had Lucullus co-operated with the fleet.

Appian claims that Lucullus had embarked from Rome with only a single legion ; upon entering Anatolia to make war against Mithridates, he added four more legions to his army.

Following Mithridates ' retreat to Armenia, Appian estimates Lucullus ' invading force to be only two legions and 500 horsemen, although it is highly improbable that he would have undertaken the invasion of Armenia with such a small army.

Tigranes ' army clearly held a numerical superiority over that of Lucullus '.

Some historians, most notably Plutarch, wrote that Tigranes considered Lucullus ' army to be far too small, and upon seeing it, is quoted to have said that " If they come as ambassadors, they are too many ; if they are soldiers, too few ," although some have expressed doubt on the veracity of this quote.

The commander of the Roman Senate army, Lucullus | Lucius Licinius Lucullus.

Tigranes ' army was positioned on the east bank of the river while Lucullus, who had left a rear guard to continue the siege of the city, met the Armenian army on the river's west bank.