Marcian

Marcian spent fifteen years as a domesticus under commanders Ardabur and his son Aspar before anyone imagined him on a throne. When Emperor Theodosius II died on 28 July 450, Aspar - who controlled the military muscle - made Marcian his candidate. After a month of negotiating, Theodosius's sister Pulcheria agreed to marry him, and he was inaugurated on 25 August 450. He immediately tore up every treaty with Attila and stopped all subsidy payments. In 452, while Attila raided Italy, Marcian sent expeditions across the Danube into the Great Hungarian Plain and beat the Huns in their own territory, helping force Attila's retreat. After Attila died in 453, Marcian settled Germanic tribes inside Roman borders as foederati and convened the Council of Chalcedon, which declared Jesus had two natures - divine and human - alienating the miaphysite populations of Syria and Egypt. He died on 27 January 457, leaving a treasury surplus of seven million solidi after years of Hunnic extortion had nearly bankrupted the East.