sep 4, 476 - 476 C.E. Fall of Western Roman Empire

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On September 4th, 476 AD a Germanic warlord by the name of Odoacer deposed the 16-year-old de facto Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus and declared himself King of Italy. Odoacer would go on to send important artifacts of the Western Emperor such as the crown and marks of office to the Eastern Emperor Zeno, Zeno would subsequently dissolve the title of Western Roman Emperor.

The deposing of Romulus Augustus would be the culmination of decades of decline of the city of Rome and would serve as the final nail in the coffin for the Western Roman Empire. While Byzantium/Constantinople had already surpassed the influence and prosperity of the city of Rome decades prior this event would see the city become the sole Capital of the Roman Empire further increasing the prestige of the city. The city of Byzantium had risen from a mundane Greek city-state that was nowhere near as influential as Sparta or Athens to the greatest city of Europe in just a few centuries, and the fall of the Western Roman Empire cemented this fact.

Citations of Secondary Sources

‌“The Fall of Rome : 476, the Final End of an Empire.” Rebellion Research, 14 Feb. 2022, www.rebellionresearch.com/the-fall-of-rome-476. Accessed 8 Nov. 2022.

Empire, Roman. “Fall of the Western Roman Empire 476 AD.” Short History Website, 10 May 2018, www.shorthistory.org/ancient-civilizations/ancient-rome/the-collapse-of-the-western-roman-empire-476-ad/.

Halsall, Guy. Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

‌CAPTION: A coin depicting Romulus Augustus the last de facto Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

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