to announce the new order of things. Zeno had already recovered the throne, from which Basiliscus had driven him, when the ambassadors arrived and informed him that they no longer needed a separate Emperor but that his sole supremacy would be sufficient; that they had selected Odovacar as a man capable of protecting Italy, being both a tried soldier and endowed with political intelligence. They asked Zeno to confer upon him the rank of Patrician and entrust him with the administration of Italy. They bore with them the Imperial insignia which Romulus had worn (A.D. 477).78
At the same time messengers arrived from Nepos to congratulate Zeno on his restoration, to ask for his sympathy with one who had suffered the same misfortune as he, and to crave his aid in men and money to recover the throne. But for the existence of Nepos, the situation would have been simple. Zeno could not ignore his legal right, but was not prepared to support it with an army. He told the representatives of the Senate that of the two Emperors they had received from the East, they had slain Anthemius and banished Nepos; let them now take Nepos back. But he granted the other request. He sent to Odovacar a diploma conferring the Patriciate, and wrote to him, praising the respect for Rome and the observance of order which had marked his conduct, and bidding him crown his goodness by acknowledging the exiled Emperor. The fact that Verina was the aunt of the wife of Nepos was a consideration which helped to hinder Zeno from disowning him. Odovacar did not acknowledge the claim of Nepos, and Zeno cannot have expected that he would.
The events of A.D. 476 have been habitually designated as the “Fall of the Western Empire.” The phrase is inaccurate and unfortunate, and sets the changes which befell in a false light. No Empire fell in A.D. 476; there was no “West Empire” to fall. There was only one Roman Empire, which sometimes was governed by two or more Augusti. If it is replied that expression is merely a convenient one to signify what contemporary writers sometimes called the Hesperian realm (Hesperium regnum), the provinces which had been, since the death of Theodosius I, generally under the separate government of an Emperor residing in Italy, and that all that is meant is the termination of this line of western Emperors, it may be pointed out that A.D. 480 is in that case the significant date. For Julius Nepos, who died in that year, was the last legitimate Emperor in the West; Romulus Augustulus was only a usurper. The important point to seize is that, from the constitutional point of view, Odovacar was the successor of Ricimer, and that the situation created by the events of A.D. 476 was in this respect similar to the situation in the intervals between the reigns of the Emperors set up by Ricimer. If, on the death of Honorius, there had been no Valentinian to succeed him, and if Theodosius II had exercised the sovranty over the western provinces, and if no second Augustus had been created again before the western provinces had passed under the sway of Teutonic rulers, no one would have spoken of the “Fall of the Western Empire.” Yet this hypothetical case would be formally the same as the actual event of A.D. 476 or rather of A.D. 480. The West came finally, as it had more than once temporarily, under the sole sovranty of the Emperor reigning at East Rome.
The Italian revolution of A.D. 476 was, however, a most memorable event, though it has been wrongly described. It stands out prominently as an important stage in the process of the dismemberment of the Empire. It belongs to the same catalogue of chronological dates which includes A.D. 418, when Honorius settled the Goths in Aquitaine, and A.D. 435, when Valentinian ceded African lands to the Vandals. In A.D. 476 the same principle of disintegration was first applied to Italy. The settlement of Odovacar’s East Germans, with Zeno’s acquiescence, began the process by which Italian soil was to pass into the hands of Ostrogoths and Lombards, Franks and Normans. And Odovacar’s title of king emphasised the significance of the change.
It is highly important to observe that Odovacar established his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate, and this body seems to have given him their loyal support throughout his reign, so far as our meagre sources permit us to draw inferences. At this time the senators who counted politically belonged to a few old and distinguished clans, possessing large estates and great wealth, particularly the Decii and the Anicii.79 The leading men of these families received high honours and posts under Odovacar. Basilius, Decius, Venantius, and Manlius Boethius held the consulship and were either Prefects of Rome or Praetorian Prefects;80 Symmachus and Sividius were consuls and Prefects of Rome;81 another senator of old family, Cassiodorus, was appointed a minister of finance.82 The evidence indicates that while it was Odovacar’s policy to appoint only men of Roman families to the Prefecture of the City, he allowed the Prefect to hold office only for a year, so that no man might win a dangerous political importance.83
Yet the Roman nobility were now compelled to contribute more largely to the maintenance of the military forces which defended Italy. The greater part of the land belonged to them, and by the new settlement one-third of their estates was taken from the proprietors, and Odovacar’s barbarian soldiers and their families were settled on them. It is not probable that the number of these soldiers exceeded 20,000 at the most, and it has been reasonably doubted whether this measure was actually carried out throughout the length and breadth of the peninsula.84 We may suspect that the needs of the army were satisfied without a drastic application of the principle of partition. If the illustrious landowners had been mulcted on a large scale, it is hardly credible that they would have co-operated with the king as loyally as they seem to have done.
Soon after the government of Italy had passed into his hands, Odovacar’s diplomacy achieved a solid success by inducing Gaiseric, who died in January, A.D. 477, to cede to him the island of Sicily. He undertook indeed to pay for it a yearly tribute, and the Vandal king reserved a foothold in the island, doubtless the western fortress of Lilybaeum.85 The death of Julius Nepos has been mentioned. He was murdered by two of his retainers in his country house near Salona in May, A.D. 480. Odovacar assumed the duty of pursuing and executing the assassins, and at the same time established his own rule in Dalmatia.86 The claims of Nepos, so long as he lived, had embarrassed the relations between Zeno and Odovacar; Zeno’s acquiescence in Odovacar’s position and the wishes of the Senate had been ambiguous and reserved. The death of Nepos relieved the situation, and there was no longer any difficulty at Constantinople about acknowledging the western consuls whom Odovacar chose. But the relations between the Emperor and his Master of Soldiers in Italy were always strained, and in A.D. 486 there was an open breach.87 Though Odovacar did not help the rebel Illus in his revolt, there were negotiations, and Zeno may have been suspicious and alarmed. Odovacar prepared an expedition into the Illyrian provinces, then pressed hard by the Ostrogoths, and Zeno averted it by instigating the Rugians to invade Italy.88 Odovacar anticipated their attack by marching through Noricum and surprising them in the winter season (end of A.D. 487) in their territory beyond the Danube. Their king Feletheus and his queen were taken to Italy and beheaded, and with the death of his son, against whom a second expedition was sent, the Rugian power was destroyed.89
Of the internal government we know little. The Church was unaffected by his rule;90 as an Arian he held aloof from ecclesiastical affairs. As to the working of the Roman administration under a German ruler, acting as an independent viceroy, and the limitations imposed on his power, we have abundant evidence regarding Odovacar’s successor, Theoderic, and when we come to his reign the details will claim our attention.
§ 5. The Ostrogoths in Illyricum and Thrace (A.D. 477-488)
In the reign of Arcadius the Visigoths had seemed likely to form a kingdom within the Illyrian peninsula, before they invaded Italy and established their home in the west. We shall now see how history repeated itself in the case of the Ostrogoths, how they too almost settled in the lands of the Balkans before they went westward to found a kingdom in Italy.91
It will be remembered that after the collapse of the Hunnic power in A.D. 454 the Ostrogoths, over whom three brothers ruled, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widemir, were allowed by the Emperor Marcian to occupy northern Pannonia, as foederati.92 After some years they were provoked by the Emperor Leo, who refused to pay an annual
