of the Huns. The Persian war
which began in 421 as a result of persecutions of the Christians in Persia
was brought to a victorious conclusion in the next year. A second war, the
result of a Persian invasion in 441, ended with a Persian defeat in 442.
But with the Huns the Romans were not so fortunate. In 434, king Rua, the
ruler of the Huns in the plains of Hungary, had extorted from the empire
the payment of an annual tribute to secure immunity from invasion. At the
accession of Attila and his brother in 433, this tribute was raised to 700
pounds of gold and the Romans were forbidden to give shelter to fugitives
from the power of the Huns. But the payment of tribute failed to win a
permanent respite, for Attila was bent on draining the wealth of the
empire and reducing it to a condition of helplessness. In 441-43 the Huns
swarmed over the Balkan provinces and defeated the imperial armies. An
indemnity of 6000 pounds of gold was exacted and the annual payment
increased to 2100 pounds. Another disastrous raid occurred in 447. The
empire could offer no resistance, and so Chrysapius plotted the
assassination of Attila, but the plot was detected. Attila claimed to
regard himself as the overlord of Theodosius.

In 438 there was published the Theodosian code, a collection of imperial
edicts which constituted the administrative law of the empire, and which
was accepted in the West as well as in the East. Theodosius died in 450,
without having made any arrangements for a successor.

*Marcian, 450-57 A. D.* The officials left the choice of a new emperor to
the Augusta Pulcheria. She selected Marcian, a tried officer, to whom she
gave her hand in formal marriage. Marcian proved himself an able and
conscientious ruler. He refused to continue the indemnity to Attila, and
was able to adhere to this policy owing to the latter's invasion of the
West and subsequent death. It was he who permitted the Ostrogoths to
settle as _foederati_ in Pannonia (454 A. D.).

*Leo I, 457-474 A. D.* At the death of Marcian in 457 the imperial
authority was conferred upon Leo, an officer of Dacian origin. His
appointment was due to the Alan Aspar, one of the masters of the soldiers,
whose power in the East rivalled that of Ricimer in the West. But Leo did
not intend to be the puppet of the powerful general, whose loyalty he
eventually came to suspect. Accordingly as a counterpoise to the Gothic
mercenaries and _foederati_, the mainstay of Aspar's pow