A guide to the Western Roman Empire in its last 81 years. It consists of both historical facts and fictional perspectives of people who were there.
Easy to understand and entirely original because I'm not an expert, but neither are you.
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The exact date of the end of imperial authority in the west is debated. This guide follows the conventional view of the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD.
When Julius Nepos was on the throne, he controlled essentially only Italy, the remaining parts of Gaul, and his native Dalmatia. The Visigoths declared themselves independent from Roman control, making whatever parts of Gaul and Spain they controlled forever lost to the Romans. In 475 AD a treaty was signed to acknowledge this.
He then placed Orestes, a man of aristocratic descent who had served once as Attila's secretary, as magister militum and patrician. This would prove to be the downfall of Julius Nepos, as Orestes then promptly gathered his foederati under his command and took control of Ravenna. Julius Nepos fled to Dalmatia without a fight, abandoning his rule in the west. However, he continued to proclaim himself western emperor and was recognized as the east as such even when Orestes raised his own candidate.
However, Orestes had made a grave mistake in his doing so. He had promised his foederati, consisting of Heruli, Scirii and Torcilingi, a third of Italy if they helped him overthrow Julius Nepos. In the end he did not make good on his promise, and the foederati grew restless and mutinous.
Orestes for some reason did not want to become emperor, and instead placed his son, Romulus, on the throne. Rightfully, his name was supposed to be Romulus Augustus, but he soon gained the nickname "Augustulus", meaning "the little emperor", showing the irrelevance of the emperor in the face of his more influential and powerful general. His reign was short and uneventful, but there were coins bearing his name being minted.
However, the foederati revolted a few months into his rule, declaring a Scrian officer named Odoacer as their king and marching on Ravenna. From every garrison and camp the foederati flocked to his banner and joined him on his revolt. Orestes gathered what men he could and attempted to stop Odoacer, but the untrained Roman soldiers were no match for the battle-hardened and veteran barbarian levies, who crushed the Roman force. Orestes fled to Pavia, but he was soon caught trying to escape and was beheaded at Piacentia in August 476.
Odoacer then moved on Ravenna, where the new magister militum, Orestes's brother Paul, engaged the foederati with whatever was left of Roman forces in Italy. Odoacer soon captured the city and forced Romulus to abdicate on 4 September 476.
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Romulus resigns the crown.
This date has conventionally been marked by historians to be the end of the Western Roman Empire, as there were no other Western emperors after Romulus. Odoacer declared himself king of Italy, and sent an ambassador from the senate of Rome to Constantinople with the imperial robes and diadem. He made it clear that the west no longer needed an emperor; "one monarch sufficed to rule the world". The then Eastern emperor Zeno accepted the gifts, and recognized Odoacer as king of Italy.
Thus the Western Roman Empire ended. Not with a spectacular and grand battle, but with the finishing of a decay that had taken root centuries ago.
