A series of three wars (88-63 BC) between Rome and Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus, fought largely on Asian and Greek soil. The First War was triggered by Mithridates's organized massacre of Roman and Italian residents across the province of Asia in 88 BC (the so-called Asiatic Vespers), an atrocity to which Cicero repeatedly returns when arguing about Asian witnesses and Roman vengeance. Sulla, Lucullus, and finally Pompey commanded against him; the war supplies the backdrop for the Pro lege Manilia and is invoked rhetorically in the Pro Flacco.