The so-called Asiatic Vespers — a calculated extermination not in the heat of battle — are perhaps the first premeditated, well-organized genocide in history.

Mithridates, King of Pontus, took advantage of his dominant position in the region, and of anti-Roman sentiment among both Asiatic and Hellene populations, subjected to depredations by Roman tax farmers and magistrates. He also tapped into social agitation among the lower classes. In a carefully coordinated operation, tens of thousands of Roman citizens were killed in 88 BC all over Anatolia, from Ephesus – an important slave-trading center – to Pergamum to the island of Chios.