…the combined forces then move on to Naissus in Pannonia.

On December 25, 350, both men mount a platform before the assembled troops; Constantius manages, by means of a strong speech, to have the soldiers acclaim him emperor.

He then takes the purple away from Vetranio, leads the old man down the stairs of the platform, calls him father, and escorts him to the dinner table. (Constantius will allow Vetranio to live as a private citizen at Prusa on the equivalent of a state pension for six years until his death.)

…Naissus to …

Theodosius, the future emperor, had been born in 347 in Cauca in the province of Gallaecia in northwestern Spain.

His father was to become the general Flavius Theodosius; his mother's name is unknown.

His grandparents, like his parents, were probably already Christians.

Growing up in Spain, Theodosius had not received an extensive education but is intellectually open-minded and has acquired a special interest in the study of history.

While on his father's staff, he has participated in his campaigns against the Picts and Scots in Britain in 368-369, the Alamanni in Gaul in 370, and the Sarmatians in the Balkans in 372-373.

As a military commander in Moesia, a Roman province on the lower Danube, he defeats the Sarmatians in 374.

Campaigning along the Danube and the Great Morava, the Huns destroy the city of Naissus (modern Serbia).

The Eastern Romans manage to arrange a truce for the following year and recall their forces from the West; the Senate agrees to pay Attila a tribute of seven hundred pounds of gold per year.

Attila, resuming his attacks in 443, begins by taking and destroying towns on the Danube, defeats the main Eastern Roman forces in a succession of battles, and so reaches the sea both north and south of Constantinople.

Although Aspar had fought the Persians successfully in 441, the Huns under Attila triumph over him outside Constantinople in 443.

As it is hopeless for the Hun archers to attack the great walls of the capital; Attila then drives into the interior of the empire toward Naissus (Nis) and …

…Odoacer attacks Zeno's westernmost provinces.

Zeno, in attempt to redirect the vexatious Ostrogothic raids on the empire’s western provinces, ends the menace of Theodoric the Amal to the prefecture of Illyricum by ordering or otherwise persuading him in 488 to venture with his Ostrogoths into Italy, overthrow Odoacer, and govern the peninsula in the Emperor's name as King of the Ostrogoths and patrician (noble ruler) of Italy.