Attila's movements after the conclusion of peace in the autumn of 443 are unknown.

Bleda, co-ruler of the Huns, dies in a hunting accident.

He has possibly been murdered at the instigation of his younger brother Attila, with whom he has ruled since 434.

Now about thirty-nine, Attila takes the throne for himself and becomes king of the Hunnic Empire, ruling with autocratic powers in peace and war alike.

He administers his huge empire by means of “picked men” (logades), whose main function is the government of and the collection of food and tribute from the subject peoples who have been assigned to them by Attila.

Theodoret, a friend of Nestorius, has become embroiled in the controversy with Cyril of Alexandria, whose views, he argues, imply a confusion of the divine and human natures of Christ.

Theodoret had shared in the petition of John I of Antioch to Nestorius to approve of the term theotokos ("mother of God"), and upon the request of John wrote against Cyril's anathemas.

He may have prepared the Antiochian symbol, which is to secure the emperor's true understanding of the Nicene Creed, and he is a member and spokesman of the deputation of eight from Antioch called by the emperor to Chalcedon.

To the condemnation of Nestorius he could not assent.

John, reconciled to Cyril by the emperor's order, seeks to bring Theodoret to submission by entrenching upon his eparchy.

Theodoret is determined to preserve the peace of the Church by seeking the adoption of a formula avoiding the unconditional condemnation of Nestorius, and toward the close of 434 had striven earnestly for the reconciliation between the Eastern churches.

But Cyril had refused to compromise and when he opened his attack upon Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore in 437, John had sided with them and Theodoret had assumed the defense of the Antiochian party around 439.

Domnus II, who had succeeded John, his uncle, in 441, had taken him as his counselor.

After the death of Cyril in 444, adherents of the Antiochian theology are appointed to bishoprics.

Irenaeus the friend of Nestorius, with the cooperation of Theodoret, becomes bishop of Tyre, in spite of the protests of Dioscorus, Cyril's successor, who now turns specially against Theodoret; and, by preferring the charge that he teaches two sons in Christ, he secures the order from the court confining Theodoret to Cyrrhus.

Petronius Maximus was born in about 396.

Although he was of obscure origin, it is now believed that he belonged to the Anicii family.

Related to later Emperor Olybrius, Maximus was the son of Anicius Probinus,,the son of Anicia Faltonia Proba and Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus, who was Prefect of Illyricum in 364, Prefect of Gaul in 366, Prefect of Italy in 368–375 and again in 383 and consul in 371.

Maximus had achieved a remarkable career early on in his life.

His earliest known office was praetor, held about 411; around 415 he served as a tribunus et notarius, which was an entry position to the imperial bureaucracy, and led to his serving as Comes sacrarum largitionum (Count of the Sacred Largess) between 416 and 419.

From January/February 420 to August/September 421 he was praefectus urbi of Rome, an office he held a second time sometime before 439; as praefectus, he restored the Old St. Peter's Basilica.

He was also appointed praetorian prefect sometime between 421 and 439; it was either during his holding of this post, or during his second urban prefecture, that he was appointed consul for the year 433.

From August 439 to February 441 he held the praetorian prefecture of Italy, then a second consulship in 443.

Between 443 (the year of his fourth prefecture and second consulship) and 445 (the year he is granted the title of Patrician) Maximus has built a forum in Rome, on the Caelian Hill between via Labicana and the Basilica di San Clemente.

During this year, he is briefly the most honored of all non-Imperial Romans, until the third consulate of Aëtius, generalissimo of the Western empire, the following year.

The establishment of an independent Vandal kingdom, which soon includes most of what is now Tunisia and part of northern Algeria, has very adverse effects, although the Vandals have probably been no more deliberately destructive than other German invaders (the notion of “vandalism” will not be voiced before the eighteenth century).

The imperial authorities have to reduce the taxes of Mauretania by seven-eighths as a result of their devastation.

Over much of northern Tunisia, landowners are expelled and the properties handed over to Vandals.

Although the agricultural system remains based on the peasants, the expulsions have a serious effect on the towns with which the landowners had been connected.

Like other invading tribes except the Franks, the Vandals are divided from their subjects by their Arian heresy.

Although their persecution of Latin Christians is exaggerated by the latter, Vandal kings certainly exercise more pressure than others.

This is no doubt in response to the vigor of African Christianity, which keeps the loyalty even of those who have little to lose by the substitution of a Vandal for a Roman landlord.

The Northern Wei Dynasty, having heretofore encouraged Buddhists, begins persecuting them in 446.

The drain of manpower and tax money to temples and monasteries has threatened the secular government, and the reaction is fierce: monks and nuns are murdered, temples and icons destroyed.

All men under age fifty are prohibited from joining any monastic order in a program that will continue until 450, helping the Confucianist philosophy of the Han Dynasty to gain dominance over Buddhism.

Aetius is consul for a third time in 446, a unique distinction for one who is not a member of the emperor's family, and it is said that envoys from the provinces were no longer sent to the emperor, but to Aetius.

Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, visits Ravenna seeking to soften imperial hostility towards the Bagaudae.

On his arrival at the capital, empress-mother Galla Placidia sends him a silver dish with a choice selection of prepared dainties—all vegetarian, out of respect for the bishop's strict diet.

Germanus petitions the Senate for leniency for the citizens of Armorica (Brittany).

The Roman position in Iberia has become so tenuous that three magistri utriusque militiae (masters of both services) have been sent to the peninsula between 441 and 446.

Britain is sliding into chaos under the onslaught of invading Picts and Scots.

The Britons and Anglo-Saxon mercenaries under King Vortigern appeal to Aetius (magister militum of Gaul), for military assistance in their struggle against the Picts and Irish.

Aetius has enough problems with Attila and is unable to send any help. (This according to Groans of the Britons.)

Atilla makes his second great attack on the Eastern Roman Empire in 447, but little is known of the details of the campaign.

Planned on an even bigger scale than that of 441-443, it invades the Balkans as far as Thermopylae but its main weight is directed toward the provinces of Lower Scythia and Moesia in southeastern Europe—i.e., farther to the east than the earlier assault.

He engages the Eastern Empire's forces on the Utus (Vid) River and defeats them but suffers serious losses.

During the invasion, Serdica (modern Sofia) is destroyed.

Attila forces Theodosius to cede large areas of territory south of the Danube to the Huns, and for disobeying the terms of the treaty made since 442, Attila triples his demand for tribute to twenty-one hundred pounds (about seven hundred kilograms) of gold per year; the ransom for each Roman prisoner to twelve solidi.

Aerobindus, sent along with other generals against Attila in 443, had been defeated by the king of the Huns.

In 447, he receives the title of patricius.