Thread by @StilichoReads

Almost everyone has at least heard of the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Franks, and Saxons, and of their legendary leaders like Attila, Clovis, and Hengist and Horsa. However, few know anything about Odoacer, the general turned king who actually ended the Western Roman Empire. A thread:

It's not clear what, exactly, Odoacer was, although he certainly wasn't considered Roman. Classical sources variously call him a Hun or a member of various east Germanic tribes that had just broken out of Attila's collapsing empire.

The earliest supposed mention of Odoacer is from the Life of St Severinus. The future king, then a young man, met the holy ascetic while traveling through the Alps to Italy, who told him, "Go to Italy, go, now covered with mean hides; soon you will make rich gifts to many."

By 470 AD, he was a senior officer in the Italian field army of the Western Roman Empire. By this point, the Western Empire was mostly just Italy and Dalmatia along the Adriatic coast; everywhere else had been broken off by Germanic invaders and rebellious generals.

At the time, the Empire was dominated by the Burgundian general Ricimer. He served under the Emperor Majorian, but assassinated him in 461 and placed a puppet senator, Libius Severius, on the throne, because as a non-Roman he could not take power himself.

(For more on the assassination of Majorian and its consequences throughout the empire, see this thread:

https://twitter.com/StilichoReads/status/1445122850550009880?t=QwdId9Hk1Dtw49l44AODZQ&s=19

)

When Libius Severius died in 465, the East stepped in to impose order on what they saw as a failed state. The Eastern Emperor Leo sent a general, Anthemius, to Italy with an army to make himself emperor. Ricimer was cowed by his military might and reluctantly swore allegiance.

The strategic priority for the Empire was clear: retake North Africa. It was the breadbasket of the west - its grain fed Rome and its taxes paid its armies. Unfortunately, it had been seized by the Vandals in 439, who used it as a base for raiding throughout the Mediterranean.

Majorian had tried to retake North Africa and failed. Anthemius could not - his expedition represented the last gasp of the Western Empire. Backed by Eastern money and men, he set sail with 1,000 ships and 30,000 soldiers in 468 and attempted to land at Cape Bon, near Carthage.

However, the Vandals launched a surprise attack with fire ships, destroying much of the Roman fleet and defeating the expedition. Anthemius continued to try to rebuild the Empire, but this was hopeless - he was bankrupt, his army was gone, and he had lost the backing of the East.

At this point Ricimer resumed his old games and Odoacer steps firmly into the historical record. Ricimer had never had a good relationship with the Emperor; the Bishop of Pavia tried to broker a true between them but failed. In 472 it descended into open warfare between them.

Anthemius was backed by the aristocracy and people of Rome itself; Ricimer, by the Italian army, with Odoacer as one of his senior officers. After five months of urban combat in Rome, Anthemius was cornered in his last stronghold, starved out, and executed.

Ricimer put another puppet on the throne, Olybrius, but died only six weeks after his rival. This left a power vacuum with numerous generals and aristocrats itching to fill it. Olybrius died right afterward; he was followed by another weak Emperor, Glycerius.

In 474, Julius Nepos, commander of Roman forces in Dalmatia, took his army into Italy, deposed Glycerius, and became emperor himself, all with the backing of the East. He ruled for a year, defeating a Visigothic invasion of Italy and trying to reassert Imperial authority in Gaul.

However, Odoacer, now commander of his Germanic Foederati, and Orestes, one of his generals, schemed against him. In 475, they staged a coup. Nepos fled back to Dalmatia and the plotters put Orestes' young son, Romulus Augustulus, on the throne.

Orestes' power ultimately relied on his mostly Germanic army, who above all wanted land in Italy to settle on. When Orestes refused to give it to them, Odoacer led them in a revolt in 476, killing Orestes in battle and deposing and exiling the young emperor to a villa.

What Odoacer did was entirely unexceptional, except perhaps for the mercy he showed Romulus. What was new was what he did afterwards - he informed the Eastern Emperor that there was no need for two emperors; Odoacer would simply govern Italy under his authority as Patrician.

To his soldiers and the people of Italy, however, he declared himself "Rex Italiae" - King of Italy. His rule was surprisingly successful and even Roman. He maintained the support of the senate throughout, giving them more authority than they enjoyed under the emperors.

He forced the Vandals to cede Sicily to him and his armies retook Dalmatia and Raetia. Pope Felix III had no conflict with Odoacer, despite his Arianism and that of his soldiers. His 17 year reign was the longest period of stability anyone alive in Italy at the time had known.

However, Odoacer could not ultimately escape the fate of his predecessors. His growing power and independence became a threat to the Eastern Emperor Zeno, who sent a rebellious Ostrogothic general, Theodoric, to depose him and rule Italy in his stead.

Theodoric invaded Italy in 489 and, after a series of back and forth battles, defeated Odoacer and besieged him in Ravenna in 490. After a three year siege, the Bishop of Ravenna brokered a peace deal under which the two men would rule Italy together.

Ten days later, they held a banquet to celebrate the treaty. Seated next to his elderly rival, Theodoric drew his sword without warning and killed him, yelling, "This is what you did to my friends!" His followers descended on Odoacer's family and supporters.

Odoacer destroyed the Roman empire, but in a sense he preserved it. He had accomplished what none of the emperors he served under could - consolidating the territories under his rule and bringing over a decade of peace and stability to people under him.