In 476 C.E., the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, the young Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the Germanic military leader Odoacer in Italy, an event that historians traditionally treat as the “fall” of the Western Roman Empire.

What happened in 476 C.E.?

  • A Germanic commander named Odoacer led federate troops (foederati) in revolt in Italy and defeated the remaining Western Roman forces near Ravenna, the imperial capital.
  • Odoacer forced the teenaged emperor Romulus Augustulus to abdicate and sent him into comfortable internal exile in Campania rather than executing him.
  • The imperial regalia of the West were sent to the Eastern Roman emperor Zeno in Constantinople, symbolizing that there would no longer be a separate Western emperor.

Why this counts as “the fall”

  • By 476, the Western emperor had almost no real power; most of the Western territories were already controlled by various Germanic kingdoms such as the Visigoths and Vandals.
  • Even so, the deposition of Romulus Augustulus became the conventional date used by later historians to mark the formal end of the Western Roman Empire and the transition to the early medieval period in the Latin West.

What changed afterward

  • Odoacer ruled as King of Italy , acknowledging the nominal overlordship of the Eastern emperor but effectively governing the former Western imperial heartland as his own kingdom.
  • The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) continued to exist for almost another thousand years, so 476 is not the end of “Rome” as a whole, only of the Western half with its own emperor and court.

TL;DR: In the western half of the Roman Empire in 476 C.E., Odoacer overthrew the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, took power in Italy, and ended the line of Western Roman emperors, a moment later generations treated as the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

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