Romulus Augustulus
The boy emperor set on the Western throne by his father, the general Orestes, and deposed by Odoacer in 476. Later writers counted him as the last Roman emperor in the West.
He was called Romulus by his parents and was made emperor by his father Orestes, a Pannonian who had once been secretary to Attila and had risen to the rank of patrician (Anonymus Valesianus 8.37–38). Procopius says that the Romans called him by the diminutive Augustulus because he came to the throne as a boy (Procopius, Wars 5.1.2, 7).
When Odoacer had killed Orestes and entered Ravenna, he deposed the boy but spared him on account of his youth, gave him an income and sent him to live with his relatives in Campania (Anonymus Valesianus 8.37–38). Marcellinus names the place as the Lucullan castle and writes that the Western empire of the Roman people perished with him (Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle under the years 475 and 476). What became of him afterwards the sources cited here do not say.
In the timeline
- AD 476, firm dateThe End of the Western Roman Empire
The general Odoacer deposes the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus at Ravenna and rules Italy as king. No Western emperor follows, and the bishops of Rome begin to deal with distant emperors and with kings of another confession.
Primary sources
Anonymus Valesianus, Latter Part (Chronica Theodericiana)
- Anonymus Valesianus 8.37–38penelope.uchicago.edu
History of the Wars
- Procopius, Wars 5.1.2, 7penelope.uchicago.edu
Chronicle
- Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle under the years 475 and 476thelatinlibrary.com