Odoacer

On August 23, 476, Odoacer was proclaimed King of Italy by his troops. He was the first barbarian King of Italy. An excerpt from the article:

"Orestes, with a spirit which, in another situation, might be entitled to our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed multitude than to subscribe to the ruin of an innocent people. He rejected the audacious demand and his refusal was favourable to the ambition of Odoacer, a bold barbarian, who assured his fellow soldiers that, if they dared to associate under his command, they might soon extort the justice which had been denied to their dutiful petitions (547).

The soldiers went over to Odoacer's camp, and Orestes fled to the city of Pavia and mounted a defense. Odoacer marched on the city and, when it seemed it would fall, Orestes escaped and re-formed an army at Piacenza. Odoacer pursued him there, defeated him in battle, and had him executed. He was then declared king of Italy on 23 August 476 CE. The remnants of the Roman army, however, refused to accept him, and a final engagement, known as the Battle of Ravenna, was fought on 2 September 476 CE from which Odoacer emerged victorious. Two days later, on 4 September 476 CE, Romulus Augustulus was deposed and the Roman Empire in the west was finished. He was sent away to Campania under a kind of house arrest with a fixed annual allowance and disappears from history. The Roman senate, which was still a functioning entity, approved of Odoacer and wrote to the emperor in the east (who, at this time, was Zeno) that they no longer felt a western emperor was necessary in Rome, and the empire could easily be ruled from Constantinople in the east and by a king in the west. Regarding this situation, historian Guy Halsall writes:

Zeno's response was sharp. He reprimanded the Roman senate for having killed one emperor sent by the east (Anthemius) and exiled another (Julius Nepos) and urged them to accept Julius back. If Julius wished to bestow the patriciate upon Odoacer, that was for him to decide. Odoacer had no wish to see Julius return and so, rebuked by the imperial court and left with no other means of legitimation, he did what more than one military commander had done before in that situation: he declared himself king (281).

Although he had already been declared king by his troops, and his position approved by the Roman senate, Odoacer's personal declaration was made as an acceptance of this honor and, also perhaps, to send the message that he felt himself worthy to be king on equal standing with any other monarch. This may have been especially directed toward Zeno in order to make clear that Odoacer intended to rule as he pleased in accordance with the precepts of the Western Empire and was not seeking Zeno's explicit approval. Though initially displeased with what appeared to him to be lawlessness, Zeno recognized that having a barbarian king in the west, instead of a co-emperor, would greatly increase his prestige as sole ruler of the Roman Empire and so approved Odoacer's reign (no doubt with the thought in mind that he could always find a way to rid himself of Odoacer later). Odoacer, at around the age of 42, was now the most powerful man in Italy."