Octavian, now close to absolute power, does…

Herod, following the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra by Octavian at Actium in 31 BCE, becomes the friend of Octavian himself.

Wishing to end any threat of popular support for Hyrcanus II, Herod in 30 BCE has him executed on a charge of plotting with the Nabataeans.

Horace publishes a second book of Satires in 30 BCE, using the two to revive a Latin form originated a century earlier by Lucilius and widening its poetic range.

He substitutes the unrestrained vituperations of Lucilius for Horace’s own gentle irony about shortcomings everyone possesses and should confront.

The Epodes belong to the iambic genre of 'blame poetry', as practiced by Archilochus, and it seems that Horace wrote them like his literary hero in order to shame his fellow citizens into a proper sense of their social responsibilities.

Herod, when visiting Octavian in 30 BCE in Rhodes to be confirmed as the Roman client-king of Judea, had separated Mariamne and Salome because of the conflict between the two, leaving his sister and his sons in Masada while moving his wife and mother-in-law, Alexandra, to Alexandrium.

Again, Herod had left instructions that should he die, the charge of the government was to be left to Salome and his sons, and Mariamne and her mother were to be killed.

Mariamne and Alexandra had been left in the charge of another man named Sohemus, and after gaining his trust again learned of the instructions Herod provided should harm befall him.

Mariamne became convinced that Herod did not truly love her and resented that he would not let her survive him.

Treating Herod coldly when he returned home, Mariamne had not concealed her hatred for him.

Salome and her mother had preyed on this opportunity, feeding Herod false information to fuel his dislike.

Herod still favored her, but she refused to have sexual relations with him and accused him of killing her grandfather, Hyrcanus II, and her brother Aristobulus.

Salome insinuated that Mariamne planned to poison Herod, and Herod had Mariamne's favorite eunuch tortured to learn more.

The eunuch knew nothing of a plot to poison the king, but confessed the only thing he did know: that Mariamne was dissatisfied with the king because of the orders given to Sohemus.

Herod, outraged, called for the immediate execution of Sohemus but permitted Mariamne to stand trial for the alleged murder plot.

Mariamne's mother, to gain favor with Herod, even implied Mariamne was plotting to commit lèse majesté.

Historians say her mother was next on Herod's list to be executed and did this only to save her own life.

Mariamne in 29 BCE is ultimately convicted and executed.

Herod for many months will grieve for Mariamne.

Octavian, from this point forward, and by a long and gradual series of tentative, patient measures, establishes the Roman principate, a system of government that enables him to maintain, in all essentials, absolute control.

Gradually reducing his sixty legions to twenty-eight, he retains approximately one hundred and fifty thousand legionaries, mostly Italian, and supplements them by about the same number of auxiliaries drawn from the provinces.

A permanent bodyguard (the Praetorians), based on the bodyguards maintained by earlier generals, is stationed partly in Rome and partly in other Italian towns.

A superb network of roads is created to maintain internal order and facilitate trade; and an efficient fleet is organized to police the Mediterranean.

Marcus Licinius Crassus, grandson of the famous triumvir and proconsul of Macedonia, had fought first with Sextus Pompeius and Mark Antony before defecting to Octavian.

Octavian had then appointed him as his colleague as consul for 30 BCE, even though Crassus had not been praetor, the office that was traditionally a prerequisite for the consulship.

Dispatched to Macedonia in 29 BCE, he moves against the Bastarnae, a tribe of Scythian ethnicity who have crossed the Danube and threatened Roman allies in neighboring Thrace.

He drives them back toward the Danube and finally defeats them in pitched battle, killing their King Deldo in single combat.

By Roman tradition, he is thus entitled to the Spolia opima, but Octavian blocks the privilege, apparently wishing to downplay the successes of individual generals in favor of his own prestige.

Crassus likewise does not receive the agnomen of Scythicus to commemorate his victory.

However, Octavian eventually does grant him a triumph upon his return to Rome.

The Serdi (Sardi), a Celtic tribe, had in the eighth century BCE established a settlement near the geographical center of the Balkans region, in the Sofia Basin, a troughlike valley in the western part of the country.

The Romans conquer this community soon after 29 BCE and name it Serdica (Greek: Sardica).

Herod executes his brother-in-law Kostobar (husband of Salome, father to Berenice) for conspiracy in 28 BCE.

Alexandra declares herself Queen, stating that Herod is mentally unfit to serve.

Josephus will write that this was Alexandra's strategic mistake; Herod executes her without trial.

Octavian and Agrippa hold a census (the first of three during the reign) of the civil population in 28.

They also reduce the Senate from about one thousand to eight hundred (later six hundred) compliant members; and Octavian is appointed its president.

Octavian realizes that the governing class will welcome him as the terminator of civil war only if he conceals his autocracy beneath provisions avowedly harking back to republican traditions.

Octavian, now Augustus Caesar, gives the ancient city of Samaria to Herod, who expands and renovates the city in 27 BCE and names it "Sebaste", meaning "Augustus", in the Emperor's honor.

An assassination attempt on Herod is foiled in this year.

The former fishing village of Pola, located on the Adriatic Sea at the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula, about sixty miles (one hundred kilometers) south of Tergeste (modern Trieste), between 46 and 45 BCE had been elevated to colonial rank as the tenth region of the Roman Republic, under Julius Caesar.

The town had grown during that time and had at its zenith a population of about thirty thousand, becoming a significant Roman port with a large surrounding area under its jurisdiction.

The town in 42 BCE  during the civil war of the triumvirate of Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus against Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius, had taken the side of Cassius, since the town had been founded by Cassius Longinus, brother of Cassius.

The town had been demolished after Octavian's victory.

Soon rebuilt at the request of Octavian's daughter Iulia, it was then called Colonia Pietas Iulia Pola Pollentia Herculanea'.

Great classical constructions are built of which a few remain.

Construction begins on a great amphitheater, Pula Arena (completed in CE 68), much of it still standing to this day.

The Romans also supply the city with a water supply and sewage systems, and fortify the city with a wall with ten gates, a few of which still remain: the Gate of Hercules (in which the names of the founders of the city are engraved), the Twin Gates, and the triumphal Arch of the Sergii.

The arch commemorates three brothers of the Sergii family, specifically Lucius Sergius Lepidus, a tribune serving in the twenty-ninth legion that participated in the Battle of Actium and in 27 BCE disbanded.

This suggests an approximate date of construction.

The arch stands behind the original naval gate of the early Roman colony.

The Sergii are a powerful family of officials in the colony and for centuries will retain their power.

Octavian has fought three campaigns in Illyria and Dalmatia from 35 BCE to 33 BCE.

The first mention of the province of Illyricum occurs in the context of Augustan settlement of 27 BCE, when it is assigned as a propraetorial province to imperial control.

The Romans divide the lands that make up present-day Albania among the provinces of Macedonia, …