40s

An anachronistic depiction of the Trung sisters' rebellion (40–43 AD)

The 40s ran from January 1, AD 40, to December 31, AD 49. Following the assassination of Caligula, Claudius became Roman emperor in AD 41. In AD 43 he sent Aulus Plautius with four legions across the Channel, initiating the decades-long Roman conquest of Britain.

The Trưng sisters' rebellion broke out in the far south of Han China in AD 40, when Vietnamese leader Trưng Trắc and her sister Trưng Nhị rose against Han authority in Jiaozhi, in what is now northern Vietnam. Han China dispatched General Ma Yuan to suppress the rebellion in AD 42. The Han army had suppressed the uprising by AD 43.

Christianity reached Egypt with the founding of the Church of Alexandria, whose first patriarch was Mark the Evangelist. James the Great, one of the Twelve Apostles and according to the New Testament, the first of them to be martyred, was killed in AD 44. Claudius expelled Jews from Rome at some point between AD 41 and 53. Scholars explain the measure to his concern with public order in Rome rather than a policy directed against Judaism.

A famine struck Judea between AD 44 and 48. Josephus records that Helena of Adiabene provided grain and dried figs to the people of Jerusalem, while her son Izates sent money to the city's leaders.

Literary works of this decade include the Histories of Alexander the Great, written by Quintus Curtius Rufus, and essays by Seneca (including De Ira; Ad Marciam, De Consolatione; De Brevitate Vitae; De Consolatione ad Polybium; and Ad Helviam Matrem, De Consolatione).

Demographics

In the absence of reliable demographic data, estimates of the world population in the 1st century vary widely: figures for AD 1 ranging from 150 to 300 million. Demographers rarely attempt to estimate the population for most specific years in antiquity, instead giving approximate numbers for round years such as AD 1 or AD 200. Scott Manning has tentatively put the population in AD 40 at 247 million.[self-published source]

Timeline

  • The settlement at Celje gets municipal rights, and is named municipium Claudia Celeia.
  • Dobruja is annexed into Roman Moesia.
  • A census shows that there are more than 6,000,000 Roman citizens.
  • After the death of its king, Thracia becomes a Roman province.
  • Rome and its northeast border are reunited by the Danube Road.
  • A large famine occurred across Syria, recorded by Orosius, Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus, due to bad harvests.
  • A drought and an invasion of locusts hit the Mongolian steppes, causing a famine and a revolt at Xiongnu.

Year unknown

Significant people

Births

  • Martial, Roman poet (approximate date)

Year unknown

Deaths

Year unknown

References

  1. ↑ Silvia Cappelletti, The Jewish Community of Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2006) ISBN 9789004151574 p.82.
  2. ↑ Donna W. Hurley (ed.), Suetonius: Diuus Claudius (Cambridge University Press, 2001) ISBN 9780521596763 p.176.
  3. ↑ "New Testament Parallels to the Works of Josephus - Page Two". www.josephus.org. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  4. ↑ Josephus, "Book XX", The Antiquities of the Jews, retrieved 2023-03-09
  5. ↑ John H. Tanton, 1994, "End of the Migration Epoch? Time For a New Paradigm", The Social Contract, Vol. 4 (no 3), pp. 162–173.
  6. ↑ Haub (1995): "By 1 A.D., the world may have held about 300 million people. One estimate of the population of the Roman Empire, from Spain to Asia Minor, in 14 A.D. is 45 million. However, other historians set the figure twice as high, suggesting how imprecise population estimates of early historical periods can be."
  7. ↑ Manning, Scott (2008-01-12). "Year-by-Year World Population Estimates: 10,000 B.C. to 2007 A.D." Historian on the Warpath. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
  8. ↑ Fabre, Guilhem; Fiches, Jean-Luc; Paillet, Jean-Louis (1991). "Interdisciplinary Research on the Aqueduct of Nimes and the Pont du Gard". Journal of Roman Archaeology. 4: 63–88. doi:10.1017/S104775940001549X.
  9. 1 2 Barrett, Anthony A. (2002). Caligula: The Corruption of Power. Routledge. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-203-13776-5.
  10. 1 2 Adkins, Lesley; Adkins, Roy A. (2004). Handbook to life in ancient Rome (2nd ed.). Infobase Publishing. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-8160-5026-0.
  11. ↑ Dixon, William Hepworth (1865). The holy land. Vol. 2. B. Tauchnitz. p. 222.
  12. ↑ Moran, Michael G. (2005). Ballif, Michelle (ed.). Classical rhetorics and rhetoricians: critical studies and sources. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-313-32178-8.
  13. ↑ Freedman, David Noel, ed. (2000). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Amsterdam University Press. p. 262. ISBN 978-90-5356-503-2.
  14. ↑ Scullard, H. H. (2010). From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome 133 BC to AD 68. Taylor & Francis. p. 249. ISBN 978-0-415-58488-3.
  15. ↑ Xiao Hong Lee, Lily; Stefanowska, A. D., eds. (2007). Biographical dictionary of Chinese women: antiquity through Sui, 1600 B.C.E.–618 C.E. Vol. 3. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 146–147. ISBN 978-0-7656-1750-7.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 16–20. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
  17. 1 2 Cassius Dio, Roman History.
  18. ↑ Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars.
  19. ↑ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 47. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
  20. ↑ Carolyn D. Williams (2009). Boudica and Her Stories: Narrative Transformations of a Warrior Queen. University of Delaware Press. pp. 79–82. ISBN 978-0-87413-079-9.
  21. ↑ "New Testament Parallels to the Works of Josephus - Page Two". www.josephus.org. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  22. ↑ Josephus, "Book XX", The Antiquities of the Jews, retrieved 2023-03-09
  23. 1 2 3 "List of Rulers of Korea". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  24. ↑ Argubright, John. "The Famine of Acts 11". Bible History. Retrieved 28 November 2025.
  25. ↑ de Crespigny, Rafe (7 June 2004). "The Division and Destruction of the Xiongnu Confederacy in the first and second centuries AD" (PDF). The Australian National University: 2.
  26. ↑ Roberts, John. The Oxford dictionary of the classical world. Oxford University Press. p. 695. ISBN 9780192801463.
  27. ↑ Kvint, Vladimir (2015). Strategy for the Global Market: Theory and Practical Applications. Routledge. p. 8. ISBN 9781317485575.
  28. ↑ Wiedemann, Thomas E. J. (1989). Adults and children in the Roman Empire. Taylor & Francis. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-415-00336-0.
  29. ↑ "Lessons for Women, Ban Zhao [Pan Chao, ca. 45-116]". UCLA Center for Chinese Studies. December 10, 2004. Retrieved March 2, 2026.
  30. ↑ Asma, Stephen T. (2009). On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780199745777.
  31. 1 2 Varner, Eric R. (2004). Mutilation and transformation: damnatio memoriae and Roman imperial portraiture. Brill. p. 21. ISBN 978-90-04-13577-2.
  32. ↑ Lightman, Marjorie; Lightman, Benjamin (2007). A to Z of ancient Greek and Roman women. Vol. 2. Infobase Publishing. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-8160-6710-7.
  33. ↑ Lightman, Marjorie; Lightman, Benjamin (2008). A to Z of Ancient Greek and Roman Women. Infobase Publishing. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-4381-0794-3.
  34. ↑ Joseph P. Free; Howard Frederic Vos (1992). Archaeology and Bible History. Zondervan. p. 238. ISBN 978-0-310-47961-1.
  35. 1 2 Chrystal, Paul (2017). Roman Women: The Women who influenced the History of Rome. Fonthill Media. p. 101.
  36. ↑ "List of Rulers of Korea". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  37. ↑ Wadley, Stephen (2006). Proceedings of the First North American Conference on Manchu Studies. Portland, Oregon: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 133. ISBN 978-3-447-05226-9.