NICOMEDES I., son of Zipcetes, succeeded his father as king of Bithynia in 278 B.C. He enlarged and consolidated the kingdom, which had been founded by his father in 288, and founded the great city of Nicomedia as the capital. He was for some time engaged in war with Antiochus of Syria, and invited the Gauls under Leonnorius and Lutarius to cross into Asia Minor and help him against his foreign and domestic enemies. His reign seems to have been long, prosperous, and uneventful ; the year of his death is unknown.