In 476 BCE
Chat with our AI personalities
No, Odoacer was not an Emperor. He was a general who deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor of the West Roman Empire, and asked Zeno, the Emperor of the East Roman Empire of the time, to take responsibility for both halves of the empire. Odoacer continued on, apparently as a king or supreme governor, in Italy. Please use the link below for more on Odoacer.
Charlemagne was crowned as King of the West Franks in 768, and this certainly made him a Germanic king. He was crowned Emperor of the Roman People by Pope Leo III in 800. Whether this actually made him he a Roman emperor is a question for debate. Certainly Empress Irene of what was called the Roman Empire at the time (now called the Byzantine Empire) did not think the title was legitimate. Please use the link to the related question below for more information on various countries calling themselves the Roman Empire.
The Ostrogoths did not conquer Rome. They left Rome alone and let her self-govern. Zeno, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire sent Theodoric the Great, the king of the Ostrogoths, to invade Italy on his behalf in order to depose Odoacer, a usurper who had led a rebellion of Germanic soldiers enlisted in the Roman army in Italy and deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The Ostrogoths had settled in the Eastern Roman Empire and had become a powerful political and military force there. When he invaded Italy, Theodoric established the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, which covered Italy and Illyria (the east coast of the Adriatic Sea). Theodoric's intention was not to take over what was left of the Western Roman Empire. He established himself in Ravenna, the capital of the Western Roman Empire. He just wanted land for his people to settle and left the Latin cities alone allowed them to self-govern. He also wanted to re-establish the splendour of the Roman Empire and carried out infrastructure work in Italy.
Romulus Augustulus was nominally the emperor of the Western Roman Empire when it fell in 476 AD. He was only a boy at the time, and not even important enough to kill, so he was merely deposed. It is ironic that he was named after Romulus the legendary founder of Rome, and Augustus the first emperor of Rome. Although his predecessor, a man named Julius Nepos, ruled a government-in-exile until his death four years later, the removal of Romulus Augustulus from the throne is generally regarded as the event which marked the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe.He was disposed by the Barbarian King Odoacer, which demanded land in the centers of Italy, and when Emperor Augustulus refused, Odoacer invaded the empire.
The western part of the empire fell under the weight of the invasions by the Germanic peoples. The Romans lost political cohesion and fought each other instead of confronting the rebellions. An effective emperor who had made headway against the invaders was deposed and executed in a power struggle. There were king makers and usurpers and the turnover of emperors was high. In the end the western part of the Roman Empire lost all of its lands.