133 BC, the pretender Eumenes III staged a rebellion. He defeated one of the consuls of 131 BC, Crassus Mucianus. The following year, the consul Marcus Perperna brought the war to a close by defeating Eumenes in the first engagement. He followed up his victory by laying siege to Stratonikeia, whither Eumenes had fled. The town was compelled by famine to surrender and the pretender fell into the consul's hands. Manius Aquillius formally established the region as the province of Asia. The bequest of the Attalid kingdom to Rome presented serious implications for neighbouring territories. It was during this period that the Kingdom of Pontus rose in status under the rule of Mithridates VI. He would prove to be a formidable foe to Rome's success in Asia and beyond. Mithridates and Sulla By 88 BC, Mithridates VI of Pontus had conquered virtually all of Asia. Capitalizing on the hatred of corrupt Roman practices, Mithridates instigated a mass revolt against Rome, ordering the slaughter of all Romans and Italians in the province. Contemporary estimates of casualties ranged from 80,000 up to 150,000. Three years later, Lucius Cornelius Sulla defeated Mithridates in the First Mithridatic War and in 85 BC reorganized the province into eleven assize districts, each central to a number of smaller, subordinate cities. These assize centers, which developed into the Roman dioceses, included Ephesus, Pergamum - the old Attalid capital, Smyrna, Adramyttium, Cyzicus, Synnada, Apamea, Miletus, and Halicarnassus. The first three cities - Ephesus, Pergamum, and Smyrna - competed to be the dominant city-state in Asia province. Age-old inter-city rivalry continued to inhibit any sort of progress towards provincial unity. Augustus After Augustus came to power, he established a proconsulship for the province of Asia, embracing the regions of Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and Phrygia. To its east, the province of Galatia was established. The proconsul spent much of his year-long term traveling throughout the province hearing cases and conducting other judicial business at each of the assize centers. Rome's transition from the Republic to the early Empire saw an important change in the role of existing provincial cities, which evolved from autonomous city-states to Imperial administrative centers. The beginning of the principate of Augustus also signaled the rise of new cities in Mysia, Lydia and Phrygia. The province grew to be an elaborate system of self-governing cities, each responsible for its own economics, taxes, and law in its territory.