In the Black Sea they exploited the shores of Pontus and Scythia, whose products they exchanged for textiles spun from the wool of their own country.
During what is called the Second Mithradatic War, Murena invaded Pontus without any good reason in 83, but was defeated in 82.
An electuary of opium, known as Mithradatum, was invented by Mithradates VI., king of Pontus, who lived in constant fear of being poisoned, and tested the effects of poisons on criminals, and is said to have taken poisons and their antidotes every day in the year.
It contains a description of the southern coast of the Euxine from the Thracian Bosporus to the river Iris in Pontus.
In Cappadocia two Persian houses, relics of the old aristocracy of Achaemenian days had carved out principalities, one of which became the kingdom of Pontus and the other the kingdom of Cappadocia (in the narrower sense); the former regarding Mithradates (281-266) as its founder, the latter being the creation of the second Ariarathes (?302-?281).