Disagreement about the start scenario of the events north of the Black Sea in the late 2nd c. BCE may be due to translation issues. So far only the Jones translation for the Loeb edition of Strabo has been cited. Let me repeat it:
"This city was at first self-governing, but when it was sacked by the barbarians it was forced to choose Mithridates Eupator as protector. He was then leading an army against the barbarians who lived beyond the isthmus as far as the Borysthenes and the Adrias; this, however, was preparatory to a campaign against the Romans.
So, then, in accordance with these hopes of his he gladly sent an army to Chersonesus, and at the same time carried on war against the Scythians, not only against Scilurus, but also the sons of Scilurus — Palacus and the rest — who, according to Poseidonius were fifty in number, but according to Apollonides were eighty.
At the same time, also, he not only subdued all these by force, but also established himself as lord of the Bosporus, receiving the country as a voluntary gift from Parisades who held sway over it.
So from that
time on down to the present the city of the Chersonesites has been subject to the potentates of the Bosporus."
But there is also the earlier translation, which runs as follows:
"It was formerly governed by its own laws, but after it was ravaged by barbarous nations, the inhabitants were obliged to elect as their protector, Mithridates Eupator, who was anxious to direct his forces against the barbarians who lived above the isthmus, and occupied the country as far as the Dnieper and the Adriatic, and thus to prepare himself against war with the Romans. Mithridates, with these views, readily despatched an expedition into the Chersonesus, and carried on war at the same time against the Scythians, Scilurus, and the sons of Scilurus, namely, Palacus and his brothers, whom Posidonius reckons to have been fifty, and Apollonides eighty, in number. By the subjugation of these enemies he became at once master of the Bosporus, which Pairisades, who held the command of it, voluntarily surrendered. From that time to the present the city of the Chersonitæ has been subject to the princes of the Bosporus. "
Falconer's "ravaged" is clearly better than Jones' "sacked". And his translation of the next segment suggests not an actual deed (as Jones') but an intention. Falconer modernizes the references to the Borysthenes and Adrias. On the whole, his translation seems more in accord with the rest of the available evidence. (Though I still have problems with "Adrias" (but that is due to the transcription of the original not to the translations).