Pompey, in his absence from Rome in 66 BCE, has been nominated to succeed Lucullus as commander in the war in the east.

Pompey's command—proposed by the tribune Gaius Manilius, supported by Caesar, and justified by Cicero in pro Lege Manilia—is, like the Gabinian law, opposed by the aristocracy, but is carried nonetheless.

The majority of Lucullus' troops now openly refuse to obey his commands, but agree to defend Roman positions from attack.

Lucullus, a plebeian noble, is incensed at the prospect of his replacement by a "new man" such as Pompey.

The outgoing commander and his replacements trade insults.

Lucullus calls Pompey a "vulture" who feeds from the work of others.

Lucullus is referring not merely to Pompey's new command against Mithridates, but also his claim to have finished the war against Spartacus.

Lucullus returns to Rome.

Ptolemy XII Auletes continues to depend heavily upon Roman support for his quasi-legitimate royal status as the Macedonian king in Hellenistic Egypt.

Hyrcanus seeks counsel from Antipater, satrap of the neighboring province of Idumaea (the former Kingdom of Edom, whose inhabits had been conquered and forcibly converted, among others, to Judaism by Hyrcanus' grandfather John Hyrcanus I).

Antipater, seeing in the weak-willed Hyrcanus a possible tool for his own desire to control Judaea, induces him to wage war on Aristobulus.

Tigranes II of Armenia, under whom the country has become the strongest state in the Roman East, has penetrated as far south as Ptolemais (modern 'Akko, Israel), but in 66 BCE the Roman general Pompey finally defeats him.

Pompey receives him graciously and gives him back his kingdom in exchange for Syria and other southern conquests.

Gaius Manilius had at the beginning of his year of office as tribune (Dec. 67 BCE) successfully gained passage of a law (de libertinorum suffragiis) giving freedmen the privilege of voting together with those who had manumitted them, that is, in the same tribe as their patroni; this law, however, is almost immediately declared null and void by the senate.

Both parties in the state are offended by the law, and Manilius endeavors to secure the support of Pompey by proposing to confer upon him the command of the war against Mithridates VI of Pontus with full powers to make war and peace and to organize the whole Roman East.

Pompey is still in the East in 66, resettling pirates as peaceful farmers, when Manilius, carries through, against weakened opposition, a bill appointing Pompey to the command against Mithridates, with unlimited power.

The proposal is supported by Cicero, who holds the praetorship in 66, in his speech, Pro lege Manilia, and carries almost unanimously.

Manilius is later accused by the aristocratic party on some unknown charge and defended by Cicero.

He was probably convicted, but nothing further is heard of him.

Mithridates VI had quelled an uprising in the region of Colchis in 83 BCE and had given Colchis to his son Mithridates, who was soon executed being suspected in having plotted against his father.

During the Third Mithridatic War, Mithridates has made another son, Machares, king of Colchis, where Mithridates has regrouped.

At Pompey's approach, Mithridates strategically withdraws his forces.

Tigranes the Great refuses him refuge, so he makes his way to his own dominions in the Cimmerian Bosporus.

Pompey secures a treaty with Tigranes, and in 65 BCE sets out in pursuit of Mithridates, but meets resistance from the Caucasian Iberians and Albanians.

He advances to Phasis in Colchis and liaises with his legate Servilius, admiral of his Euxine fleet, before decisively defeating Mithridates.

Pompey now retraces his steps, …

…winters at Pontus, and makes it into a Roman province.

The democratic faction at Rome in 65 BCE, however, raises the issue of Ptolemy XII's legitimacy, producing a questionable will of Ptolemy XI Alexander II purporting to bequeath Egypt to the Roman people.

Auletes, through bribery in 65 BCE, prevents Roman annexation of Egypt, although …

…Rome seizes Ptolemaic-ruled Cyprus.