Barba captured in the interior Prusias on Olympus and Nicaea while Triarius along the coast captured Apamea (formerly Myrlea) and Prusias on the sea (formerly Cius).

They then united for a joint attack on Mithradates himself in Nicomedia; but the king without even attempting battle escaped to his ships and sailed homeward, and in this he was successful only because the Roman admiral Voconius, who was entrusted with the blockade of the port of Nicomedia, arrived too late.

On the voyage the important Heraclea was indeed betrayed to the king and occupied by him; but a storm in these waters sank more than sixty of, his ships and dispersed the rest; the king arrived almost alone at Sinope.

The offensive on the part of Mithradates ended in a complete defeat--not at all honourable, least of all for the supreme leader--of the Pontic forces by land and sea.
Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus Lucullus now in turn proceeded to the aggressive.

Triarius received the command of the fleet, with orders first of all to blockade the Hellespont and lie in wait for the Pontic ships returning from Crete and Spain; Cotta was charged with the siege of Heraclea; the difficult task of providing supplies was entrusted to the faithful and active princes of the Galatians and to Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia; Lucullus himself advanced in the autumn of 681 into the favoured land of Pontus, which had long been untrodden by an enemy.