Romulus Augustulus
Romulus Augustulus (actually Romulus Augustus; * 460, † after 476 ) was the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, who reigned in Italy. Last but by the Eastern Roman Empire recognized the Emperor was his predecessor Julius Nepos.
Life
Romulus was after his maternal grandfather, the Western Roman comes Romulus, named. He was still a child when his father, the magister militum per Italiam Orestes, made a proclamation by the troops of the emperor on 31 October of the year 475. Its official name and title on the embossed coins for him was: D ( ominus ) N ( oster ) Romvlvs A ( V) GVSTVS P (ius ) F ( elix ) AVG ( ustus ) = Our Lord Romulus Augustus, the pious, happy, sublime. Here, the first " Augustus " as his name and the second as its title is to be understood. Because of his young age and his insignificance of the young Emperor of the political opposition with the nickname " Augustulus " ("the Kaiserlein ") and " Momyllus " was considered ( "the little eyesore ").
Romulus was much too young and inexperienced to rule the Western Roman Empire itself. He was all the time his government just a puppet whose strings Orestes held in his hands. This was notably refrained himself to be emperor, as manifestly appeared by now the post of army commander important than the throne. Against Orestes and Romulus, however, was still Julius Nepos, the Western Roman Emperor, who had been banished shortly before the proclamation of Romulus as Emperor of Rome to Dalmatia. From this province practiced Nepos still great influence on the empire, more than Orestes or Romulus, because in contrast to Romulus, he was officially recognized by the Eastern Roman Emperor.
The crisis that led the Western Roman Empire to its end, had already begun decades earlier. The incipient 375 migrations had led to the Germanic peoples who fled from the invading Huns on Roman territory, where they had finally established their own kingdoms. The Huns remained a threat, because they had attacked the Roman Empire itself. The Romans had Germans in their own army take to defy the overwhelming power can, with which the Romans were more and more dependent on their Germanic mercenaries (see Late Antiquity ).
Westrom dominated state was during the 5th century, becoming a ( Roman as well as " barbaric " ) of generals become, in the civil administration and the Emperor barely had real power. Now when the Germanic foederati country called after the coup of General Orestes Orestes in Italy and they refused to do so, it came on August 23, 476 open rebellion. Orestes was five days later defeated and killed. Leader of the rebels was the high-ranking officer Odoacer, son of Edekon, who had been in the service of Attila the Hun, and a Skirin; Odoacer had already served under Ricimer. He sat from Romulus, banished him from Ravenna on the estate in Naples ( castellum Lucullanum ) and sent the imperial insignia by Ostrom with the remark that we need not have its own Augustus in Italy anymore, but put under the Emperor Constantine in Opel. As the Western Roman Empire was gone, went from Romulus - unlike in previous deposed emperors - no danger. He was then on an annual pension of 6,000 solidi. When he died, is unknown. Cassiodorus says in his Variae a donation of Theodoric the Great in a Romulus ( 507-510 ); However, it is unclear whether this is to Romulus Augustulus.
The end of the Western Roman Empire
After deposition of Romulus Odoacer was inspired by his (mostly Germanic ) soldiers to the king of Italy (Latin: rex Italiae ) proclamation, and was the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno first de facto recognized as Regent. Although practiced Julius Nepos, the Zenon officially considered still as Emperor of the West, of Dalmatia from still affects the realm of, but he was assassinated in 480, Odoacer and now had the sole dominion over Italy held. Only 488 came the break with Zenon.
The dismissal of 476 sealed the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, such as Marcellinus Comes 40 years later noted, even if it was not the end of antiquity, as was assumed in the earlier research often ( cf. Late Antiquity ). Was decisive was, as I said, that it had Odoacer not found necessary to use a ( puppets ) rulers (his predecessor as particularly Ricimer were still so moved ), but the office of the West Emperor had de facto abolished, which in itself expressed two things: firstly, in the fact that he kept alive Romulus, on the other hand by sending the insignia of the Western Roman Empire ( the ornamenta palatii ) to Constantinople Opel. Compared with Zenon presented Odoacer envoy, according to the historian Malchus of Philadelphia explicitly states that the West needed no more own emperor, Augustus in the East now suffice for the whole kingdom.
476 Thus ended the Western Roman Empire ( whether this year also ended Westrom, is disputed). The Eastern Roman (or Byzantine ) Empire, however, survived the crisis of the Great Migration by almost a thousand years and only ended in 1453 with the conquest by the Ottomans.
Reception
The last emperor of Rome is the main actor in the " unhistorical historical " Comedy Romulus the Great by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Valerio Massimo Manfredi devoted Romulus Augustulus the novel L'ultima legione, which was filmed in 2007 under the title The Last Legion.