440

Year 440 was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Valentinianus and Anatolius. The denomination 440 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

Flavius Aetius, Roman general, returns as triumphator back to Rome, after several years' fighting the Burgundians and Visigoths in Gaul. He is honoured by a statue erected by the Senate, and by order of Emperor Valentinian III.
The Huns under Attila reappear in force, along the frontier of the Western Roman Empire. They attack merchants on the north bank of the Danube and cities in Illyricum, including Viminacium, city of Moesia.
Africa
A Vandal fleet and their allies set out from Carthage for Sicily, the principal supplier of oil and grain to Italy after the loss of North Africa. They loot all the coastal towns and besiege Palermo. Heavily laden ships return to the court of King Genseric.
Asia
Northern and Southern dynasties: Northern China is unified by the Northern Wei dynasty. The South is still under the control of the Song dynasty.
A center of Buddhist studies is established at Nalanda in Bihar on the plains of the Ganges River.
Persia
The Hephthalites move south from the Altai Mountains region into Transoxiana, Bactria, Khorasan and eastern Persia.
By topic

The Parting of Lot and Abraham, mosaic in the nave arcade, Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, is made.
Ancient Games
Chaturanga, Indian war game and an ancestor of chess through the Persian game of Shatranj, evolves in the Indus Valley on the Indian subcontinent.
Religion
August 18 - Pope Sixtus III dies after an 8-year reign in which he has resisted heresy and sponsored major construction programs in Rome. He is succeeded by Leo I as the 45th pope.
September 29 - Leo I begins to formulate Orthodoxy and condemns Eutychianism, an extreme form of monophysitism which holds that the human nature of Christ is absorbed by His divine nature.
Winter - Leo I sends a letter to Valentinian III stating, "by the Holy Spirit's inspiration the emperor needs no human instruction and is incapable of doctrinal error".