to mid 440s as the Suebi extended their control. By 444, all the Spanish provinces bar Hispania Tarraconensis had been lost to the Germanic tribe and even Tarraconensis was under pressure due to continued Bagaudic uprisings. As a consequence of these territorial losses, by the mid 440s the state was experiencing severe financial problems, with the government openly acknowledging that there was insufficient revenue to meet the military needs of the Roman state. The emperor issued a law on 14 July 444, stripping the bureaucrats of their exemptions from the recruitment tax. In that year, two additional taxes were issued in Valentinian's name, one a sales tax of around four percent and another on the senatorial class, specifically to raise new troops as well as feeding and clothing them. Senators of illustrious rank were required to contribute the money for maintaining three soldiers, senators of the second class money for one soldier, and senators of the third class one-third the cost of maintaining a soldier. Even Valentinian himself was not exempt and he was forced to sacrifice part of his income and use the reduced contents of his personal income to help the State in its financial straits. Hunnic invasions The Huns continued to pressure the Danubian provinces in the 440s. Sometime before 449, Valentinian granted the honorary title of magister militum of the western empire upon their chieftain, Attila the Hun, and the western court was relieved when he concentrated on raiding the eastern empire's provinces in the Balkans from 441 through to 449. In 449, Attila received a message from Honoria, Valentinian III's sister, offering him half the western empire if he would rescue her from an unwanted marriage that her brother was forcing her into. Attila had been looking for a pretext for invading the West and was allegedly bribed by the Vandal king Gaiseric to attack the Visigoths in Gaul. In 450, he invaded the Gallic provinces, after securing peace with the eastern court. Valentinian was furious over the invasion. The man Honoria sent to Attila with the offer was tortured to reveal all the details of the arrangement and then beheaded. It took a great deal of persuading for Valentinian's mother to get her son to agree to spare his sister's life. In early 451, Attila crossed the Rhine and entered the Belgic provinces, capturing Divodurum Mediomatricum (Metz) on April 7, 451, Aetius gathered together