All of eastern China is under Emperor…

Wei, seeing that the Eastern Han dynasty is gradually unifying the empire, inexplicably begins considering independence.

He tries to persuade Dou to enter into an alliance with him to resist Eastern Han; Dou refuses.

When the Eastern Han forces start considering the conquest of Chengjia, Wei, apprehensive of the implications of Chengjia's fall, tries to persuade Emperor Guangwu not to carry out a campaign against Chengjia, and later refuses to lead his forces south against Chengjia.

Emperor Guangwu, who in any case prefers peaceful resolution, repeatedly writes both Wei and Gongsun with humble terms, trying to get them to submit to him, promising them titles and honors.

Wei continues to nominally submit but act as an independent power, while Gongsun refuses outright—but continues to be indecisive and takes no action, while the Eastern Han dynasty’s rule is being confirmed throughout the land.

Realizing that neither Wei nor Gongsun will voluntarily submit, Emperor Guangwu initiates a campaign against Wei in summer 30—assisted by Wei's friend Ma Yuan, who had served as Wei's liaison officer to Emperor Guangwu and had tried in vain to persuade him not to take the course of independence.

In response, Wei formally submits to Gongsun and accepts a princely title—Prince of Shuoning—from him, and also tries to persuade Dou to join him.

Dou refuses, and attacks Wei in coordination with Emperor Guangwu's forces.

Jesus of Nazareth as stated by the Gospels preached and was executed under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea province.

Tiberius is mentioned in the New Testament, by name only once, in Luke 3:1, stating that John the Baptist entered on his public ministry in the fifteenth year of his reign.

Many references to Caesar (or the emperor in some other translations), without further specification, would seem to refer to Tiberius.

Similarly, the "Tribute Penny" referred to in Matthew and Mark is popularly thought to be a silver denarius coin of Tiberius.

The governorship of Pilate, who at one point reportedly introduces votive images of the emperor into Jerusalem, is plagued by conflict with the Jews.

In the most notorious incident (whether fact or legend) the radical Jesus’ criticisms of Jewish religious leaders, combined with the political rhetoric he employs in announcing that God's rule is about to replace human rule, leads to mounting opposition toward him in both the Jewish and Roman establishments.

Jesus (according to the Gospel of Mark) arrives in Jerusalem just before Passover.

He takes the initiative in bringing things to a head by entering the great temple and denouncing the commercial operations carried on there in the selling of animals and other materials for sacrifices.

He predicts the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem, but this is to be a sign that God will act in history in a climactic way to restore and vindicate his true people, who will come from all over the Earth to share in the joys of his kingdom.

God’s people must, in the interim, learn to accept suffering, including Jesus' own suffering and death.

Although Jesus shares many beliefs with the Pharisees (who appear in the New Testament as Jesus’ most vocal critics), including resurrection of the dead, their insistence on ritual observance of the letter rather than the spirit of the law evokes his strong denunciation.

He calls them (according to the Gospel of Matthew) "white washed tombs" and self-righteous lovers of display (Jesus is, possibly, attacking unrepresentative members of the sect. Matthew also portrays the Pharisees as plotting to destroy Jesus, although they do not figure in the accounts of his later arrest and trial.)

Jesus, predicting his imminent apprehension and death at the hands of the civil and religious authorities,  shares a Last Supper with his disciples.

He informs his disciples that one among them will betray him.

Jesus is, indeed, betrayed by Judas Iscariot.

The other eleven disciples abandon Jesus when the authorities seize him during Passover in Jerusalem in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Following Jesus’ arrest as a claimant to Jewish kingship, Peter (pictured by Mark and Matthew as a leader and spokesman of the disciples) thrice denies knowing him; he later repents his denial.

Pilate, although reportedly believing Jesus innocent, tries him and yields to the desires of the crowds.

He releases the imprisoned radical leader Barabbas (the Roman governor customarily grants one such pardon each year at Passover time) and condemns Jesus to execution by crucifixion—an ancient form of execution used for at least a century by the Romans to punish non-Roman citizens who threaten Roman authority.

The priestly and aristocratic Sadducees, who owe their power to political alliance with the Romans, play a leading role, according to the New Testament, in the trial and condemnation of Jesus.

Jesus’ crucifixion according to Christian tradition occurs in the year CE 30.

A handful of faithful women remain with him when he dies at Calvary.

Unusual phenomena connected with the event reportedly include an eclipse and an earthquake.

After the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea—a wealthy, devout member of the Sanhedrin who would not consent to that body's decision to put Jesus to death—asks Pilate for Jesus' body and, with the assistance of Nicodemus, inters the body in a garden tomb near Golgotha.

The faithful women, who return to his tomb on the third day after his death, are astonished to find it empty, its heavy blocking stone rolled away.

An angel informs them that Jesus is alive and that the fellowship they had enjoyed with him will be renewed.

Jesus' subsequent appearances to his disciples (described in the Gospels in varying detail) revive their faith in him.

Judas (according to Matthew 27:4), distraught over Jesus' condemnation, returns his reward of thirty pieces of silver and hangs himself; or (according to Acts 1:18) purchase a field with the money but falls headlong in it, injures himself, and dies.

Agrippina’s son Drusus Caesar, imprisoned in Rome, dies of starvation; his brother Nero Caesar either commits suicide soon after the trial or starves to death on Pandataria.

Ptolemy of Mauretania has grown popular among the Berbers and has traveled extensively throughout the Roman Empire.

In Caesarea, prayers are offered for the health of Ptolemy at the Temple of Saturn, worshiped in Mauretania as the God of agriculture.

A temple and a sanctuary cult are dedicated to Saturn in Caesaea by 30 and throughout Mauretania various temples are dedicated to Saturn.

The extremist Zealots occasionally resort to violence and assassination against the Romans and their Jewish supporters, according to the historian Josephus; hence, they are called Sicarii (from the Greek for "dagger men").

The surname of Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, may indicate that he was a member.

Another of the Twelve, Simon (called the Zealot by Luke and called the Cananaean—Aramaic for "zealot"—by Matthew and Mark), may originally have belonged to the Zealots or still be a member.

Jesus is often depicted in modern imagery, with red (or, at least, “auburn”) hair, but since there are no contemporary descriptions of him, no one can say.

It is possible that his erstwhile disciple, Judas, may have been red-haired, if there is any basis to the the nineteenth-century term “Judas-haired”, an epithet directed against redheads.

The Apostles, as the disciples become known after Jesus’ crucifixion, had reportedly witnessed Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the faithful community at Pentecost.

The Gospels assert that Jesus had challenged and commissioned the men to spread the message about Jesus as Messiah and to continue the work he has begun.

The devoted but skeptical Thomas—called Didymus ("twin")—refuses to believe in the testimony of the other apostles concerning the resurrection of Jesus until he sees the wounds of the resurrected Christ himself (according to John 20:24, 25, 26-29).

Thomas (according to early fourth century writer Eusebius of Caesarea) becomes a missionary to Parthia and later (according to the third century "Acts of Thomas,") founds the church of the Malabar Christians in Madras.

Jesus’ brother James was not (according to the later Gospels of Matthew and John) a follower of Jesus during his early ministry. (The New Testament lists James—later identified as Saint James the Lesser—as first among the "brothers of Jesus," a relationship often posited as that of stepbrothers or cousins.)

James had become a believer after the resurrected Christ appeared to him (according to Paul, in I Corinthians 15:7), and is regarded as an apostle (according to Paul, in Galatians 1:19).

John (whom many people believe is the "beloved disciple" referred to in the fourth Gospel, attributed to John) plays (according to Acts 1:13, 8:14) a prominent role in the early church.

Bartholomew, whose name means "son of Tolmai" and is frequently identified (John 1) with Nathanael, is (according to tradition) martyred in Armenia.

Matthew, the tax collector called by Jesus (Mark and Luke give his name as Levi) goes on to write (according to tradition) the Gospel of Matthew.

John’s brother James, (later known as Saint James the Greater) is (according to Acts 12) martyred under Herod Agrippa I; his bones are taken to Spain (according to legend) and interred at a shrine at Santiago de Compostela.

Little is recorded of another disciple, Thaddeus (mentioned in Mark and Matthew and often identified with the Jude, or Judas, son of James, in Luke 6:16).

Matthias (according to Acts 1:15-26) is the apostle chosen by lot to replace Judas; he later preaches, according to one tradition, in Ethiopia.

Philip's is the poorest share of his father Herod's inheritance, but he rules it well.

Having few Jewish subjects, he pursues a policy of Hellenization.

His coins bear the Emperor's image, and he rebuilds a town, Bethsaida, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee), renaming it Julias in honor of Livia, the wife of Augustus Near the source of the Jordan, he founds another town and allows it a large degree of self-government, on the Greek pattern.

Sejanus holds the consulship with Tiberius in absentia in 31, receives the long-sought permission from Tiberius to marry Drusus’s widow Livilla and begins his play for power in earnest.

In the same year, the Emperor receives evidence from Antonia Minor, his sister-in-law, that Sejanus plans to overthrow him.

Precisely what happened is difficult to determine, but Sejanus seems to have covertly attempted to court those families who were tied to the Julians, and attempted to ingratiate himself with the Julian family line with an eye towards placing himself, as an adopted Julian, in the position of Princeps, or as a possible regent.

Livilla is later implicated in this plot, and is revealed to have been Sejanus's lover for a number of years, possibly even before the birth of the twins, who some (including Tiberius) suspect Sejanus to have fathered.

The plot seems to have involved the two of them overthrowing Tiberius, with the support of the Julians, and either assuming the Principate themselves, or serving as regent to the young Tiberius Gemellus or possibly even Gaius Caligula.

Those who stand in his way are tried for treason and swiftly dealt with.

Sejanus is summoned in early October to a meeting of the Senate, where a letter from Tiberius is read condemning Sejanus and ordering his immediate execution.

Sejanus is tried, dragged off to prison,and he and several of his colleagues are executed within the week.

As commander of the Praetorian Guard, he is replaced by Naevius Sutorius Macro, who, according to Tacitus, had been active in discrediting Sejanus and in directing the subsequent purge against his family and followers, with most of Sejanus' family (including his children) and followers sharing his fate.

Sejanus' former wife Apicata, on hearing of the death of her children, addresses a letter to Tiberius, accusing Sejanus and Livilla of having poisoned Drusus; she then commits suicide.

Drusus' cupbearer Lygdus and Livilla's physician Eudemus are questioned and under torture confirm Apicata's accusation.

Livilla dies shortly afterwards, either being killed or by suicide.

According to Cassius Dio, Tiberius handed Livilla over to her mother, Antonia Minor, who locked her up in a room and starved her to death.

Tacitus claims that more treason trials followed and that whereas Tiberius had been hesitant to act at the outset of his reign, now, towards the end of his life, he seemed to do so without compunction.

Hardest hit were those families with political ties to the Julians.

Even the imperial magistracy was hit, as any and all who had associated with Sejanus or could in some way be tied to his schemes were summarily tried and executed, their properties seized by the state (in a similar way, in the few years after Valeria Messalina's death, Agrippina the Younger removed anyone she considered loyal to Messalina's memory, much in the same way that Sejanus's followers were executed).

Several modern historians have challenged Tacitus' portrayal of a tyrannical, vengeful emperor.

The prominent ancient historian Edward Togo Salmon notes: "In the whole twenty two years of Tiberius' reign, not more than fifty-two persons were accused of treason, of whom almost half escaped conviction, while the four innocent people to be condemned fell victims to the excessive zeal of the Senate, not to the Emperor's tyranny".

(A history of the Roman world from 30 B.C.

to A.D. 138 (1944; rev.

ed.

1963, 1968; p. 183) One of the few surviving sources contemporary with the rule of Tiberius comes from Velleius Paterculus, who served under Tiberius for eight years (from CE 4) in Germany and Pannonia as praefect of cavalry and legatus.

Paterculus' Compendium of Roman History spans a period from the fall of Troy to the death of Livia in CE 29.

His text on Tiberius lavishes praise on both the emperor and Sejanus.

How much of this is due to genuine admiration or prudence remains an open question, but it has been conjectured that he was put to death in CE 31 as a friend of Sejanus.

Rumors abound as to what exactly he Tiberius us doing in Capri.

Suetonius records lurid tales of sexual perversity and cruelty, and most of all his paranoia.

While heavily sensationalized, Suetonius' stories at least paint a picture of how Tiberius was perceived by the Roman people, and what his impact on the Principate was during his twenty-three years of rule.

Gaius Caesar, as a boy of just two or three, had accompanied his father, Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius, on campaigns in the north of Germania.

The soldiers, amused that Gaius was dressed in a miniature soldier's uniform, including boots and armor, soon gave Gaius his nickname Caligula, meaning "little (soldier's) boot" in Latin, after the small boots he wore as part of his uniform.

Gaius, though, reportedly grew to dislike this nickname.

Suetonius claims that Germanicus was poisoned in Syria by an agent of Tiberius, who viewed Germanicus as a political rival.

After the death of his father, Caligula lived with his mother until her relations with Tiberius deteriorated.After the banishment of Agrippina and Caligula's brother, Nero, when adolescent Caligula had been sent to live first with his great-grandmother (and Tiberius's mother) Livia.

Following Livia's death, he had been sent to live with his grandmother Antonia.

Suetonius writes that after the banishment of his mother and brothers, Caligula and his sisters were nothing more than prisoners of Tiberius under the close watch of soldiers.

To the surprise of many, Caligula is spared by Tiberius: in 31, Caligula is remanded to the personal care of the emperor on Capri, where he is to live for the next six years.

The affair with Sejanus and the final years of treason trials have permanently damaged Tiberius' image and reputation.

After Sejanus's fall, Tiberius' withdrawal from Rome is complete; the empire continues to run under the inertia of the bureaucracy established by Augustus, rather than through the leadership of the Princeps.

Suetonius records that he became paranoid, and spent a great deal of time brooding over the death of his son.

A shortage of grain in 32 leads to public protests in Rome.

Meanwhile, during this period a short invasion by Parthia, incursions by tribes from Dacia and from across the Rhine by several Germanic tribes occur.

Wei's small independent regime, after some initial successes, eventually collapses under overwhelming force and is reduced severely.

Wei dies in 33 and is succeeded by his son Wei Chun.