This celebrated letter may be dated towards the end of 449, allowing time for news to reach Theodoret of his deposition at the Latrocinium on August 11. In 445 Leo had procured the well known decree from Valentinian III, addressed to the famous Aetius in connexion with the dispute with Hilary of Arles, constituting the bishop of Rome the chief authority in the Western Church, basing his demands not so much on the recognised precedence of the imperial see as on the supposed primacy of St. Peter. But in 451, only two years after the date of Theodoret’s letter the council of Chalcedon (Can. xxviii), after recording the canon (iii) of Constantinople that “the bishop of Constantinople shall have the primacy of honour after the bishop of Rome, because that Constantinople is new Rome,” added “we decree the same things concerning the privileges of Constantinople, which is new Rome. The Fathers formerly gave the primacy to the see of old Rome, because she was the imperial city, and gave like privileges to new Rome, rightly judging that the city which enjoyed like imperial privileges should also be honoured in matters ecclesiastical, being next in rank.” We are yet very far from later claims. Indeed even Gregory the Great when he protested against the title of œcumenical bishop, assumed by John the Faster, did not claim it for himself.