After a number of preliminary conferences accompanying an inevitable campaign of pamphleteering in which Hilary of Poitiers took part, the bishops of the Western portion of the Empire met at Ariminum towards the end of May, and those of the East at Seleucia Isauria in the month of September, 359.
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In the summer of 357, Ursacius and Valens, the advocates of this latter group of dissidents in the West, through the influence which they were enabled to bring to bear upon the Emperor by means of his second wife, Aurelia Eusebia (Panegyr. Jul. Orat., iii; Ammianus, XXI, vi, 4), succeeded in bringing about a conference of bishops at Sirmium.
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In order to understand the theological significance of Acacianism as a critical episode in both the logical and historical progress of Arianism, it is needful to recall that the great definition of the Homoousion, promulgated at Nicaea in 325, rather than putting an end to further discussion, became the occasion for keener debate and for still more confusion of statement in the formulation of theories on the relationship of Our Lord to His Father.