Emperor Guangwu has to deal with periodic minor battles against the Xiongnu to the north.

There are however no major wars with Xiongnu throughout his reign, but because of raids by Xiongnu, Wuhuan, and Xianbei, the northern prefectures nevertheless become largely depopulated, as the people suffer great casualties and also flee to more southerly lands.

Many Xiyu (modern Xinjiang and former Soviet Central Asia) kingdoms, suffering in 46 under the hegemony of one of the kingdoms, Shache (Yarkand), petition Emperor Guangwu to again reestablish the Western Han post of Governor of Xiyu.

Emperor Guangwu declines, stating that his empire is so lacking in strength at this time that he cannot expend efforts to protect Xiyu kingdoms.

The Xiyu kingdoms in response submit to the Xiongnu.

The Roman province of Moesia had been created in about CE 5, but the Dobruja, under the name Ripa Thraciae, had remained part of the Odrysian kingdom, while the Greek cities on the coast formed Praefectura orae maritimae.

In 46 CE, Thracia becomes a Roman province and the territories of present Dobruja, known to the Romans as Scythia Minor, are absorbed into the province of Moesia.

Asinius Gallus, the grandson of Asinius Pollio, and Statilius Corvinus are exiled in CE 46 for a plot hatched with several of Claudius' own freedmen.

Valerius Asiaticus is executed without public trial for unknown reasons.

The ancient sources say the charge was adultery, and that Claudius was tricked into issuing the punishment.

However, Claudius singles out Asiaticus for special damnation in his speech on the Gauls, which dates over a year later, suggesting that the charge must have been much more serious.

Asiaticus had been a claimant to the throne in the chaos following Caligula's death and a co-consul with the Statilius Corvinus mentioned above.

Most of these conspiracies took place before Claudius' term as Censor, and may have induced him to review the Senatorial rolls.

Because of the circumstances of his accession, Claudius takes great pains to please the Senate.

During regular sessions, the Emperor sits among the Senate body, speaking in turn.

When introducing a law, he sits on a bench between the consuls in his position as Holder of the Power of Tribune (The Emperor cannot officially serve as a Tribune of the Plebes as he is a Patrician, but it is a power taken by previous rulers).

He refused to accept all his predecessors' titles (including Imperator) at the beginning of his reign, preferring to earn them in due course.

He allows the Senate to issue its own bronze coinage for the first time since Augustus.

He also puts the Imperial provinces of Macedonia and Achaea back under Senate control.

Claudius sets about remodeling the Senate into a more efficient, representative body.

He chides the senators about their reluctance to debate bills introduced by himself.

An opportunity for the Eastern Han dynasty arises in 47 with regard to the Xiongnu during a succession dispute that pits the current chanyu, Punu, against his cousin Bi, the son of a former chanyu.

Roman garrisons stationed throughout Judea have exploited Jews with punitive taxation since 63 BCE, exceeding the quota set by the Roman Empire and keeping the surplus revenues for themselves.

The Roman procurators have also subjugated the Jewish High Priesthood, appointing pro-Roman Jews to positions of authority, and desecrated sacred Jewish practices with sacrilegious pagan rituals.

The Roman Emperor Caligula in 39 had declared himself divine and ordered his troops in Jerusalem to place his name on the Temple.

When the Jews refused, he threatened to destroy the temple but his sudden timely demise saved Jerusalem from a premature siege, yet Caligula's threat had caused many of the moderate Jews to shift towards radical anti-Roman political views.

As the Roman burden becomes more onerous, Jewish priests alienated by the pro-Roman high priesthood join in the effort to attain political and religious liberty by any means possible, thus forming the Zealots, who kindle anti-Roman sentiment throughout Galilee and Judea.

Josephus' Jewish Antiquities states that there were three main Jewish sects at this time, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes.

The Zealots are a "fourth sect", founded by Judas of Galilee (also called Judas of Gamala) and Zadok the Pharisee in the year 6 against Quirinius' tax reform, shortly after the Roman Empire declares what had most recently been the tetrarchy of Herod Archelaus to be a Roman province, and that they "agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord." (18.1.6).

Some scholars argue that the group was not so clearly marked out before the first war of 66-70 as others have supposed.

The Zealots, as strict interpreters of the Law are extremists who are willing to lay their own lives down for independence from Roman domination.

They have begun to form a growing nationalist resistance movement.

Two of Judas' sons, Jacob and Simon, are from 46 to 48 involved in a revolt and are executed by Tiberius Alexander, the procurator of Iudaea province.

Claudius pays special attention to transportation, building roads and canals throughout Italy and the provinces.

Among these is a large canal leading from the Rhine to the sea, as well as a road from Italy to Germany—both begun by his father, Drusus.

Closer to Rome, he builds a navigable canal on the Tiber, leading to Portus, his new port just four kilometers (two and a half miles) north of Ostia, Rome's original harbor.

The port at Ostia is part of Claudius' solution to the constant grain shortages that occur in winter, after the Roman shipping season.

The other part of his solution is to insure the ships of grain merchants who are willing to risk traveling to Egypt in the off-season.

He also grants their sailors special privileges, including citizenship and exemption from the Lex Papia-Poppaea, a law that regulates marriage.

In addition, he repeals the taxes that Caligula had instituted on food, and further reduces taxes on communities suffering drought or famine.

The new port, enclosing an area of sixty-nine hectares (one hundred and seventy acres), is constructed in a semicircle with two long curving moles projecting into the sea, and an artificial island, bearing a lighthouse, in the center of the space between them.

The foundation of this lighthouse is provided by filling one of the massive Obelisk ships, used to transport an obelisk from Egypt to adorn the spina of Vatican Circus, built during the reign of Caligula.

The harbor thus opens directly to the sea on the northwest and communicates with the Tiber by a channel on the southeast.

The object is to obtain protection from the prevalent southwest wind, to which the river mouth is exposed.

Though Claudius, in the inscription which he caused to be erected in CE 46, boasts that he has freed the city of Rome from the danger of inundation, his work is only partially successful: in 62 CE, Tacitus speaks of a number of grain ships sinking within the harbor during a violent storm.

Within the carefully planned town are shops, offices, and warehouses, along with public baths and lavatories, a theater, and a gymnasium.

Claudius, in front of a crowd of spectators, fights a killer whale that is trapped in the harbor of Ostia.

The event is witnessed by Pliny the Elder: A killer whale was actually seen in the harbor of Ostia, locked in combat with the emperor Claudius.

She had come when he was completing the construction of the harbor, drawn there by the wreck of a ship bringing leather hides from Gaul, and feeding there over a number of days, had made a furrow in the shallows: the waves had raised up such a mound of sand that she couldn't turn around at all, and while she was pursuing her banquet as the waves moved it shorewards, her back stuck up out of the water like the overturned keel of a boat.

The Emperor ordered that a large array of nets be stretched across the mouths of the harbor, and setting out in person with the Praetorian cohorts gave a show to the Roman people, soldiers showering lances from attacking ships, one of which I saw swamped by the beast's waterspout and sunk.— "Historia Naturalis" IX.14–15.

Many other senators attempt different conspiracies and are condemned.

Claudius' son-in-law Pompeius Magnus is executed for his part in a conspiracy with his father Crassus Frugi.

Another plot involves the consulars Lusiius Saturninus, Cornelius Lupus, and Pompeius Pedo.

Suetonius states that a total of thirty-five senators and three hundred knights were executed for offenses during Claudius' reign, which could not have helped Senate-emperor relations.

In 47 CE, Claudius assumes the office of Censor with Lucius Vitellius, which had been allowed to lapse for some time.

He strikes the names of many senators and equites who no longer meet qualifications, but shows respect by allowing them to resign in advance.

At the same time, he seeks to admit eligible men from the provinces.

The Lyon Tablet preserves his speech on the admittance of Gallic senators, in which he addresses the Senate with reverence but also with criticism for their disdain of these men.

He also increases the number of Patricians by adding new families to the dwindling number of noble lines.

Here he follows the precedent of Lucius Junius Brutus and Julius Caesar.

Nevertheless, many in the Senate remain hostile to Claudius, and many plots are made on his life.

This hostility carries over into the historical accounts.

As a result, Claudius is forced to reduce the Senate's power for efficiency.

The administration of Ostia is turned over to an Imperial Procurator after construction of the port.

Administration of many of the empire's financial concerns is turned over to Imperial appointees and freedmen.

This leads to further resentment and suggestions that these same freedmen are ruling the Emperor.

According to Suetonius, Claudius was extraordinarily fond of games.

He is said to have risen with the crowd after gladiatorial matches and given unrestrained praise to the fighters.

Claudius also presides over many new and original events.

Soon after coming into power, Claudius had instituted games to be held in honor of his father on the latter's birthday.

Annual games were also held in honor of his accession, and took place at the Praetorian camp where Claudius had first been proclaimed Emperor.

Claudius performs the Secular games, marking the eight hunredth anniversary of the founding of Rome.

Augustus had performed the same games less than a century prior.

Augustus' excuse is that the interval for the games is one hundred and ten years, not one hundred, but his date actually does not qualify under either reasoning.

Claudius also presents naval battles to mark the attempted draining of the Fucine lake, as well as many other public games and shows.

Claudius also restores and adorns many of the venues around Rome.

The old wooden barriers of the Circus Maximus are replaced with ones made of gold-ornamented marble.

A new section of the Circus is designated for seating the senators, who previously had sat among the general public.

Claudius rebuilds Pompey's Theater after it had been destroyed by fire, throwing special fights at the re-dedication, which he observes from a special platform in the orchestra box.

The Romans prevail in southeastern Britain, and in 47 establish their first British colony in the province of Roman Britain, Camulodunum (present Colchester), situated on the Colne River, in present Essex.

Extensive trade with the Romans also takes place, with such items as grains, furs, and enslaved people exchanged for wine and other luxuries.

Londinium, situated on a terrace near the north bank of the tidal River Thames, forty miles (sixty-four kilometers) from its estuary on the North Sea, is established as a town by the Romans after the invasion of CE 43 led by the Roman Emperor Claudius.

Archaeologists now believe that Londinium was founded by CE 50 as a civilian settlement or civitas.

A wooden drain by the side of the main Roman road excavated at No. 1 Poultry has been dated by dendrochronology to CE 47, which is likely to be the foundation date.

Before the arrival of the Roman legions, the area was almost certainly lightly rolling open countryside traversed by streams such as Walbrook.

Londinium is established at the point where the Thames is narrow enough to build a bridge, but deep enough to handle seagoing marine vessels.

Remains of a massive Roman pier base for a bridge will be found in 1981, close to the modern London Bridge.

It was traditionally thought that Londinium started as a civilian settlement, although there is also slight evidence that there was a Roman fortress.

However, archaeological excavation undertaken since the 1970s by the Department of Urban Archaeology of the Museum of London, now called MOLAS, has failed to unearth any convincing traces of military occupation on the site, so many archeologists now believe that Londinium was the product of private enterprise.

Its site on a busy river-crossing makes it a perfect place for traders from across the Roman Empire to set up business.

The name Londinium is thought to be pre-Roman (and possibly pre-Celtic) in origin, although there has been no consensus on what it means.

It is common practice for Romans to adopt native names for new settlements.

A common theory is that the name derives from a hypothetical Celtic placename, Londinion which may have been derived from the personal name Londinos, from the word lond, meaning 'wild'.

A theory proposed by Richard Coates, which does not have widespread acceptance, suggests that the name derives from a Celticized Old European river-name forming part of the oldest stratum of European toponymy, in the sense established by Hans Krahe; Coates suggested a derivation from a pre-Celtic Plowonida — from two roots, plew and nejd, possibly meaning "the flowing river" or "the wide flowing river".

Therefore, Londinium would mean "the settlement on the wide river".

He suggests that the river was called the Thames upriver where it was narrower, and Plowonida downriver, where it is too wide to ford.

Inscriptions and graffiti found by archaeologists confirm that Latin was the local language.

It has been implied by modern scholars that many of the local people spoke the Celtic language now termed Brythonic, called lingua Gallica (Gaulish) by the Romans; this language is ancestral to Welsh, Cornish and Breton.

The status of Londinium is uncertain.

It was not the capital of a civitas, though Ptolemy lists it as one of the cities of the Cantiaci.

Starting as a small fort guarding the northern end of the new bridge across the River Thames, it will grow to become an important port for trade between Britain and the Roman provinces on the continent.

The lack of private Roman villas (plentiful elsewhere) suggests military or even imperial ownership.