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The end of the Roman civil war after Octavian’s victory at Actium (September of 31 BCE) and the inauguration of the principate (27 BCE) did not herald a substantial change in the political and administrative organization of the Roman Near East. Octavian, now Augustus, continued the policy of client states established by Pompey and pursued by Antony. He did not even change Antony’s clients, except for those in Emesa and Amanus, two states that were briefly annexed in 30 BCE before being given over to client princes in 20 BCE. The Roman province of Syria, enlarged with the Cilician Plain and various peripheral districts to the north (Zeugma, Doliche), became one of the most important provinces in the empire, sheltering three or four legions and encompassing many client principalities (Pliny mentions many of them but adds that there were seventeen more so modest that he felt it useless to list them), while many important client kingdoms were situated around the periphery, notably Commagene, Amanus, Cilicia Trachea, Emesa, Judaea, Abilene, and Nabataea. This did not prevent the province from growing here and there, either definitively (Palmyra most likely between 12 and 17 ce) or temporarily (Judaea-Samaria sometime between the death of Archelaos in 6 ce and the restoration of Herod’s kingdom for Agrippa I in 41 ce; Commagene between 17 and 37 ce).