Shuoning's capital Luomen (in modern Tianshui, Gansu)…

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.

Agrippina, in prison at Pandataria, protests violently.

On one occasion, Tiberius had ordered a guard to flog her, during which punishment she loses an eye.

Refusing to eat, Agrippina is force-fed but later starves herself to death, expiring on October 17, 33 CE.

Tacitus, however, leaves open the possibility that she was deprived of nourishment while in prison and her death was not voluntary.

After her death, Tiberius slanders her name and has the senate declare that her birth date was a date of bad omen.

Together with Caligula, Germanicus’s eighteen-year-old daughter, named Julia Agrippina after her mother and known to posterity as Agrippina the younger, has also escaped the purges, as have seventeen-year-old Julia Drusilla, and fifteen-year-old Julia Livilla.

The future Saint Stephen, who was among seven men of the early church at Jerusalem appointed to serve as deacon, is pictured in Christian scripture as also successfully preaching to his fellow Jews and bringing many to accept Jesus as the Messiah.

After a dispute with the members of a synagogue of "Roman Freedmen," he is denounced for blasphemy against God and Moses (Acts 6:11) and speaking against the Temple and the Law.

Stephen is tried before the Sanhedrin around 34-35.

His defense is presented as accusing the Jews of persecuting the prophets who had spoken out against the sins of the nation: "Which one of the Prophets did your fathers not persecute, and they killed the ones who prophesied the coming of the Just One, of whom now, too, you have become betrayers and murderers." (7:52)

While on trial, he experiences a theophany in which he sees both God the Father and God the Son: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." (Acts 7:56)

This vision of Christ standing differs from other Scripture, which indicates Jesus sits at the right hand of God—perhaps inferring that Christ stood in honor of Stephen whose martyrdom was near.

He is condemned and stoned to death by an infuriated mob, which is encouraged by Saul of Tarsus, later to be known as Saint Paul the Apostle.

Paul, after his own conversion to Christianity, makes reference to witnessing Stephen's martyrdom in his writings.

Philip, late in his reign, had married Salome, the daughter of Herodias, who the Gospels paint as her mother's tool in securing from Herod Antipas the execution of John the Baptist.

The most peaceable of the three inheritors of Herod's throne, Philip rules the northern third of the former Judean kingdom until his death in CE 34, after which the Romans add his territory to the province of Syria.

Little has been done to either secure or indicate how Tiberius’s succession is to take place; the Julians and their supporters had fallen to the wrath of Sejanus, and his own sons and immediate family are dead.

Two of the candidates are either Caligula, the sole surviving son of Germanicus, or his own grandson, Tiberius Gemellus.

According to historians, Caligula was an excellent natural actor and, recognizing danger, hid all his resentment towards Tiberius.

An observer said of Caligula, "Never was there a better servant or a worse master!"

Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Caligula 10).

After he became Emperor, Caligula claimed to have planned to kill Tiberius with a dagger in order to avenge his mother and brother: however, having brought the weapon into Tiberius's bedroom he did not kill the Emperor but instead threw the dagger down on the floor.

Supposedly Tiberius knew of this but never dared to do anything about it.

Suetonius claims that Caligula was already cruel and vicious: he writes that, when Tiberius brought Caligula to Capri, his purpose was to allow Caligula to live in order that he "...prove the ruin of himself and of all men, and that he was rearing a viper for the Roman People and a Phaëton for the world."

(The Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Caligula 11) However, only a halfhearted attempt at the end of his Tiberius' life is made to make Caligula a quaestor, in 33, and thus give him some credibility as a possible successor, while Gemellus himself is still only a teenager and thus completely unsuitable for some years to come.

Caligula wild hold this honorary quaestorship until his rise to Emperor.

Caligula was briefly married to Junia Claudilla in 33, though she dies in childbirth in 34.

Caligula spends time befriending the Praetorian Prefect, Naevius Sutorius Macro, an important ally.

Macro speaks well of Caligula to Tiberius, attempting to quell any ill will or suspicion the emperor felt towards Caligula.

As prefect, Macro wields considerable influence.

According to Suetonius, Macro gained further favor by turning a blind eye to his wife Eunia's affair with Caligula around this time.

Emperor Guangwu, turning his attention to Chengjia, commissionshis generals Wu Han, Cen Peng, Lai She, and Gai Yan to mount a two-pronged attack on Chengjia—Wu and Cen leading an army and a navy up the Yangtze river from modern Hubei, while Lai and Gai lead an army south from modern Shaanxi.

Instead of fighting the Eastern Han expedition on the battlefield, Gongsun tries to repel them by assassinating their generals—and he is initially successful, assassinating Cen and Lai and temporarily causing the Eastern Han forces to halt.

Marcus Julius Agrippa, the son of Antipater, whose suspicious father, Herod the Great, had put him to death, had been sent for education and safety to Rome, where he had grown up in company with the future emperor Tiberius' son Drusus.

After the death of his mother, Agrippa had quickly spent his family's wealth and acquired serious debts.

Agrippa had been obliged to flee Rome in 23 when Drusus died and had settled near Beersheba.

After a brief seclusion, through the mediation of his wife Cypros and his sister Herodias, he had been given a sum of money by his uncle, Herodias' new husband, Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, and had been allowed to take up residence in Tiberias, receiving the rank of aedile in this city, with a small yearly income.

Eventually quarreling with his brother-in-law, he had fled to Flaccus, proconsul of Syria.

Agrippa is convicted soon afterwards through the information of his brother Aristobulus, of having received a bribe from the Damascenes, who wish to purchase his influence with the proconsul, and is again compelled to flee.

The Eastern Han forces regroup, and in 36 they have Gongsun surrounded in his capital Chengdu (modern Chengdu, Sichuan).

However, initial attempts to besiege the city are unsuccessful, and Wu, then in command of the expeditionary force, considers withdrawing.

Persuaded by his lieutenant Zhang Kan that Gongsun is in desperate straits, however, Wu tricks Gongsun into believing that the Eastern Han forces are collapsing from fatigue, drawing him out of the city and engaging in battle.

Gongsun is mortally wounded in battle, and Chengdu surrenders in winter 36.

Liu's general Wu Han subsequently kills more than ten thousand people.

(Hou Han Shu by Fan Ye, vol.

13 [Biography of Emperor Guangwu])

Dou turns over the lands under his control to Emperor Guangwu in 36 after Chengjia's fall, and is made prime controller.

An account of John the Baptist is found in all extant manuscripts of the Jewish Antiquities (book 18, chapter 5, 2) by Flavius Josephus (37–100): "Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.

Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late.

Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.

Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him.” (Translation by William Whiston).

As with other passages in Josephus relating to Christian themes, concern remains over whether the passage was part of Josephus's original text or instead a later addition—it can be dated back no further than the early third century, when it is quoted by Origen in Contra Celsum.

According to this passage, the execution of John was blamed for a defeat Herod suffered around CE 36.

Divergences between the passage's presentation and the Biblical accounts of John include the notion that baptism for those whose souls who have already been "purified beforehand by righteousness" is for purification of the body, not general repentance of sin (Mark 1:4).