Cicero provides an example of the extent to which the Roman economy depended on the control of its frontiers. In 66 B.C.E. he delivered a speech calling for an expansion of power to the general Pompey in his war against Mithridates VI in Pontus (the Black Sea region). Mithridates was gaining control of the region from 120 B.C.E. and threatening Roman stability there. Cicero supported a proposal, advanced by Gaius Manilius, extending power to generals to allow them to handle conflicts such as the one in Pontus with greater power.

In the speech, Cicero emphasizes the economic ramifications of gradually losing control of the region: "Asia . . . is so extraordinarily wealthy and fertile that the productiveness of its soil, the diversity of its crops, the dimensions of its pasture-land and the volume of its exports exceed those of any other...