Valentinian III effects a marriage proposal for…

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.

A treaty with the Western Roman imperial government in 442 establishes the Vandals in Africa proconsularis, …

…Byzacena, …

…Tripolitania, and …

…Numidia as far west as Cirta.

Genseric gives back Sicily and Mauretania (Algeria and Morocco).

This marks the end of the Vandal migrations; they settle in North Africa with Carthage as their capital.

Gunabhadra translates the Lankavatara Sutra, one of the key texts of Mahayana Buddhism, from Sanskrit to Chinese.

The Lankavatara Sūtra, which figures prominently in the development of Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese Buddhism, is notably an important sūtra in Chinese Chán and its Japanese version, Zen.

Gunabhadrae continues to be active in preaching and other translations.

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 …

…Serdica (Sofia), both of which he destroys.