Odoacer Deposes the Last Western Roman Emperor
A Germanic commander sends the imperial regalia back to Constantinople and rules Italy in his own name
Quick facts
- Deposed emperor
- Romulus Augustulus
- Date
- September 4, 476 CE
- New ruler
- Odoacer (r. 476-493 CE)
- Odoacer's fate
- Killed by Theodoric the Ostrogoth in 493 CE
What happened
Orestes, a Roman commander, had refused to grant land in Italy to the Germanic soldiers serving in the Roman army, and those troops turned to the officer Odoacer to lead a revolt. Odoacer defeated and executed Orestes near Piacenza, then advanced on the imperial capital at Ravenna and forced Orestes's teenage son, the emperor Romulus Augustulus, to abdicate on September 4, 476 CE. Rather than claim the imperial title for himself, Odoacer sent the imperial vestments, diadem, and purple cloak back to the eastern emperor Zeno in Constantinople and ruled Italy as king in his own name, becoming the peninsula's first Germanic ruler.
Why it matters
Historians conventionally date the end of the Western Roman Empire to this event, though Roman institutions and the Senate continued functioning under Odoacer for years afterward. For Italy specifically, September 476 marks the start of thirteen centuries during which no single ruler would govern the whole peninsula until 1861, a fracture into competing kingdoms, city-states, and foreign possessions that this timeline follows from here. The empire's earlier history is covered on the Ancient Rome timeline.
How we know
The deposition of Romulus Augustulus and Odoacer's return of the imperial regalia to Zeno are recorded by contemporary and near-contemporary chroniclers including Jordanes and Marcellinus Comes, and the date is treated by modern historians as the conventional marker for the end of the Western Roman Empire.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Fall of the Western Roman Empire · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Ostrogoths · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- Ancient Rome → · For the empire's rise, its centuries of rule over Italy and the Mediterranean, and the slower institutional decline that led to this moment, see the Ancient Rome timeline.