The first Council of Orange is convened…

The Huns, led by Attila, attack Constanţa (in modern Romania), one of the few remaining Roman forts on the northern bank of the Danube and designated as a secure trading post.

On a crowded market day, the Huns take the town by surprise and slaughter the garrison.

The historians of the Eastern Roman Empire give us a considerable amount of information on Chrysaphius, whose real name was Taiouma (Theophanes 151) or Tumna (Cedrenus I 601) or Tzoumas (Patria II 182; George Codinus 47) or even Ztommas (Malalas 363-6).

Chrysaphius exercises a considerable influence on Theodosius II at the end of his reign.

According to Malalas, Theodosius II loved Chrysaphius for his beauty (Malalas id and 368).

He seems to have risen from among the ranks: according to Malalas, he was a mere cubicularius (servant of the imperial bedchamber); according to the Chronicon Paschale, he was a spatharios (p. 390).

In 441, the city prefect in Constantinople is a pagan poet from Panopolis in Egypt named Cyrus, who is exceedingly popular in the city.

Thus he incurs the envy of Chrysaphius, who engineers his downfall.

Cyrus saves himself by converting to Christianity, but the malice of Chrysaphius is not so easily frustrated, and the eunuch arranges for him to be appointed bishop of Cotyaeum in Phyrgia, where the population has lynched the previous four incumbents.

In the event, Cyrus survives and will return to Constantinople in 451 after the death of Chrysaphius.

Isaac the Great, Armenian apostolic patriarch, has helped to develop a Greek-inspired alphabet and translate the Bible with various Christian writings into Armenian.

Through Isaac's efforts, the churches and monasteries destroyed by the Persians have been rebuilt, education is cared for in a generous way, Zoroastrianism, which Shah Yazdegerd I had tried to set up, had been cast out, and three councils have been held to reestablish ecclesiastical discipline.

Said to have been the author of liturgical hymns, Isaac dies at Ashtishat between 439 and 441.

Areobindus, a Goth who has become part of the political class of the Eastern Roman Empire, had taken part in the war of 422 against the Sasanids of king Bahram V, with the rank of comes foederatorum, that is, commander of the contingent of barbarians fighting as allies in the Roman army.

On that occasion, Areobindus had defeated in a duel one of the Sasanids, Ardazanes; and following his victory the peace was concluded.

In 434, Areobindus had been chosen consul by the Eastern court, along with the consul of the West, Aspar.

In the same year, he had been appointed magister militum per Orientem (perhaps praesentialis), a position he will hold until his death.

Theodosius II sends the Eastern imperial fleet under the command of Areobindus into Sicilian waters, taking the Vandals by surprise.

The expedition is not successful because its leaders waste time in Sicily.

Rechila takes Baetica’s provincial capital, Seville, in 441.

These conquests are extremely significant, but nothing of the sequence of events leading to them is known.

The provinces of Lusitania, Baetica, and Carthaginiensis become subject to the Suevi with the exception of the Levante ( the eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula) and the Mediterranean seaboard.

German Saxons establish themselves at the mouth of the Thames River.

After a period of peace, Vortimer (son of king Vortigern), defeats the Saxons in four battles in Kent (according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle).

The activities of Attila from 435 to 439 are unknown, but he seems to have been engaged in subduing barbarian peoples to the north or east of his dominions.

During six years of peace between the Huns and the Eastern Romans, the latter do not appear to have paid the sums stipulated in the treaty of Margus, so when their forces are occupied in 441 in the west and on the eastern frontier, Attila launches a heavy assault on the Danubian frontier of the Eastern Empire, capturing and razing a number of important cities, including Singidunum (Belgrade).

They have mastered siege technology and are able to capture fortified cities.

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.

The unsuccessful issue of the Bar Kokba war had put an end for centuries to Messianic movements, but Messianic hopes are nonetheless cherished.

The Messiah, in accordance with a computation found in the Talmud, had been expected in 440 (Sanh. 97b) or 471 ('Ab. Zarah 9b).

Judah ha-Nasi had predicted that the Messiah would come in the year equivalent to CE 435, three hundred and sixty-five years after the destruction of the Temple).

R. Hanina, his student, had predicted that the Messiah would come in the year 470 (four hundred years after the destruction).

This, coupled with persecution and natural disasters, has resulted in the appearance of false messiahs.

This expectation in connection with the disturbances in the Roman empire attendant upon invasions may have raised up the Messiah who appears about this time in Crete, and who wins over the Jewish population to his movement.

One Jose, or ‘Fiscus’, in 442 proclaims himself the new Moses and predicts that on a certain day, the sea will open and the Jewish people will walk on dry land to Palestine.

On the given day, ‘Moses of Crete’ and many of his followers dutifully leap off a low cliff into the sea, with predictably tragic results.

The “False Messiah” phenomenon has become so widespread that most rabbis forbid predictions of the coming of the Messiah, since often people bereft of hope convert after grave disappointment.

Valentinian III effects a marriage proposal for his eldest daughter Eudocia and Genseric's son Huneric, at this time a hostage in Italy.

Huneric is already married to a Visigoth princess and Genseric decides to free him of his obligations by accusing her of trying to poison him.

He leaves her mutilated—her ears and nose are cut off—and sends her back to her father Theodoric I, in Toulouse (Gaul).

This engagement serves to strengthen the alliance between the Western court and the Vandal kingdom in Africa.

Their marriage does not take place at this time, however, because Eudocia is not yet of age.