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Odoacer

 

(born c. 433 — died March 15, 493, Ravenna) First barbarian king of Italy (476 – 493). A German warrior in the Roman army, he led a revolt against the usurper Orestes (475). He was proclaimed king by his troops in 476, the date that traditionally marks the end of the Western Roman Empire. Odoacer paid homage to the Eastern emperor, Zeno, but asserted his own right to rule Italy. He conquered Dalmatia (482), defeated the Rugi (487 – 488), and retook Sicily from the Vandals. By attacking the Eastern Empire, he alienated Zeno, who encouraged the Ostrogothic king Theodoric to invade Italy (489). Theodoric captured almost the entire peninsula and killed Odoacer after inviting him to a banquet.

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Biography: Odoacer
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The Germanic chieftain Odoacer (433-493), by deposing the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus, is traditionally credited with ending the Western Roman Empire.

Odoacer was born into a Germanic tribe, the Scirians, and was probably the younger son of Edico, an important person under Attila the Hun. In 470 he and the Scirians entered Italy and, together with many Germanic warriors, took up military service under the Romans. In 472 these German troops, including Odoacer, rebelled and aided the powerful German Ricimer in his bid to make Olybrius emperor. Both Ricimer and Olybrius soon died, and in the ensuing struggle a Roman officer, Orestes, triumphed. In 476 he established his son Romulus Augustulus as emperor, dispossessing the existing Western emperor, Julius Nepos.

However, Orestes failed to satisfy the demands of the Germans, who turned to Odoacer, proclaiming him king on Aug. 23, 476. The Germans then followed him in a rebellion which led to Orestes' death and Romulus's deposition. Significantly Odoacer ceased using shadow emperors and instead claimed himself as the power in the West with whom Zeno, the Eastern emperor, had to deal. Defining the nature of that relationship would concern Zeno and Odoacer as long as Odoacer lived.

An Uneasy Throne

Zeno still claimed to support the deposed Julius Nepos, but he rewarded Odoacer with the title of patrician. In 480 Julius Nepos was murdered, and Odoacer punished his murderers. Zeno had no choice but to recognize Odoacer. Peace lasted until 487, when Odoacer corresponded with a certain Illus, a rebel against Zeno. Although Odoacer had not actually aided the rebel, Zeno regarded his actions as hostile and decided to break his power by sending the Germanic tribe of the Rugians against him (487). Odoacer defeated the Rugians, and Zeno turned for assistance to Theodoric, ruler of the Ostrogoths.

Meanwhile, Odoacer sought to build up his power in Italy. To placate the Germans, he made large grants of land to them. He won the favor of the Roman Senate by awarding high offices to its members. By war and diplomacy, he managed to deal with Italy's two major external threats - Euric, King of the Visigoths, and Gaiseric, King of the Vandals. From 477 he even issued coins in his own name.

Theodoric remained the major threat. In 489 he entered Italy. After several major defeats, Odoacer in 490 lost the support of the Roman Senate. He fell back upon the capital at Ravenna, where he endured a siege of 2 years. In 493 a compromise was worked out; Odoacer and Theodoric agreed to rule Italy jointly. However, a few days after entering the city, Theodoric slew Odoacer.

Further Reading

Ancient sources for Odoacer are given in Colin Douglas Gordon, The Age of Attila (1960). The best accounts in English are in Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders (8 vols., 1880-1889), and J. B. Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire (2 vols., 1889). More recent sources are Stewart Perowne, The End of the Roman World (1966), and Arnold H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602 (3 vols., 1964) and The Decline of the Ancient World (1966).

Odo (v)acer, first barbarian king of Italy, AD 476–93; see FALL OF ROME.


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Skirian officer elected Roman emperor in ad 476 in opposition to Romulus and his father Orestes. He ruled Italy until defeated and killed by Theodoric the Great in ad 493.

 
Odoacer (ōdōā'sər) or Odovacar (-vā'kər), c.435-493, chieftain of the Heruli, the Sciri, and the Rugii (see Germans). He and his troops were mercenaries in the service of Rome, but in 476 the Heruli revolted and proclaimed Odoacer their king. Odoacer defeated the Roman general Orestes at Piacenza, took Ravenna (the West Roman capital), and deposed Romulus Augustulus, last Roman emperor of the West (until the coronation in 800 of Charlemagne). The date 476 is often accepted as the end of the West Roman Empire. However, Odoacer's action made little difference in the status of Western Rome, which had long been prey to the barbarian armies; the emperors had been mere puppets. Emperor Zeno of the East, considering himself heir to the West Roman Empire, reluctantly recognized Odoacer's authority over Italy and granted him the title of patrician. The Roman administration of Italy continued to function under Odoacer, who retained the chief officers of state. In 488, Zeno sent Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, into Italy to expel Odoacer. Several times defeated, Odoacer consented (493) to a treaty by which he was to share his authority with Theodoric. Invited to a banquet by Theodoric, Odoacer and his son and chief officers were treacherously assassinated; thus Theodoric made himself master of Italy.
Wikipedia: Odoacer
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Odoacer
King of Italy
Coin of Odoacer, Ravenna, 477, with Odoacer in profile, depicted with a "barbarian" moustache.
Reign 476 - 493
Predecessor Romulus Augustus
Successor Theodoric the Great
Father Edeko
Died 493
Ravenna

Odoacer (435–493), also known as Odovacer, was a Germanic foederati general and the first non-Roman ruler of Italy after AD 476. He deposed the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus on 4 September of that year, but continued to rule first as a nominal client of Julius Nepos and, after Nepos' death in AD 480, as a client of the Emperor in Constantinople.[1] Odoacer is referred to as a king (Latin rex) in many documents, but the title appears to be informal, though he himself used it at least once and on another occasion it was used by the consul Basilius.[2]

Contents

Early life

Odoacer may have been the son of the Scirii chieftain, Edeko, a vassal of the Huns under Attila. His name itself is Germanic, and Odoacer's mother may have been Germanic herself, but her name and nationality are left unmentioned throughout history. That Odoacer was a Scirian is taken from John of Antioch, that he was a Rugian is from Jordanes, though Jordanes also affirms him as king of the Turcilingi (Torcilingorum rex). The Consularia Italica calls him king of the Heruli, while Theophanes appears to be guessing when he calls him a Goth.

Leader of the foederati

Romulus Augustus resigns the Crown.

In 470, Odoacer was appointed leader of a band of foederati, In 475, Orestes was appointed Magister militum and patrician by the Western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos; he was therefore made head of the Germanic foederati of Italy (the Scirian - Herulic foederati). Orestes promised them a third of the Italic peninsula if they led the revolt against Emperor Nepos. The foederati were 30,000 strong (plus families), and they had lived on the Italic peninsula for several years at this point; however, they had only received scraps of land in relatively unfertile areas around the Apennine mountains. The foederati accepted the offer and led the revolt as planned; on 28 August 475 they defeated Nepos, who fled to Dalmatia. With the emperor far away, Orestes elevated his son Romulus to the rank of Augustus, so that the last Western Roman Emperor is known as Romulus Augustus.

After the revolt, Orestes, as magister militum, organized his own army. Behind the safety of this army, Orestes rescinded his pledge to the foederati; as a result, the foederati revolted and defeated Orestes. Odoacer was the leader of the revolt against Orestes, who was captured and executed. After the revolt, the Germanic foederati, the Scirians and the Heruli, as well as a large segment of the Italic Roman army, proclaimed Odoacer rex Italiae ("king of Italy").[3] In 476, Odoacer advanced to Ravenna, capturing the city and the young emperor. Romulus was compelled to abdicate on 4 September 476. In the same year Odoacer renounced the meaningless title of Emperor, which was a wise move that avoided a conflict with Constantinople. He sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Emperor Zeno and declared himself Patrician of the Western half, which by this time was no more than the Italian peninsula, Dalmatia and an exclave in northern Gaul. The rightful Western Roman Emperor, Julius Nepos, ruled powerless in Dalmatia, where he would live until his assassination in 480. During this four-year interval Odoacer recognized Nepos as Western emperor and even made coins in his name.

King of Italy

Odoacer's Kingdom in 480 AD, after he annexed Sicily and Dalmatia.
Odoacer solidus struck in the name of Emperor Zeno. This coin testifies to the formal submission of Odoacer to Zeno.

In 476, Odoacer officially became the first Germanic King of Italy and a new era began. Odoacer was an Arian Christian and is said to have been illiterate. The warriors and the families in Odoacer's foederati received lands in Italy and became beneficiaries of a special tax policy. Odoacer retained the Roman administration, senate, law and tax system of Italy. In return, he won a high level of support from the senate and people.

Odoacer raised an Italic-Germanic army with which he defeated the Vandals in Sicily. He was able to conquer the whole island by 477. By 480, he and his Italic-Germanic army annexed all of ancient Dalmatia, after the death (possibly by assassination) of Western Emperor Julius Nepos. After this, he received the right to appoint a council and to issue his own coinage. He made pacts with the Visigoths and Franks and joined them in battle against the Burgundians, Alamanni, and Saxons.

As Odoacer's kingdom expanded, his popularity among the Italic people grew, and his pacts with the Franks and Visigoths gave him increased influence. All these things started to worry Zeno, the Eastern Emperor, who increasingly saw Odoacer as a rival. In 487 Odoacer led his army to victory against the Rugians in Noricum, but he did not incorporate it into his own kingdom. The remaining Rugians fled and took refuge with the Ostrogoths. Rugiland was left open and by 493 was settled by the Lombards. In 488, Emperor Zeno started a mostly verbal campaign against Odoacer, accusing him of playing a major part in the revolt of Illus in 484. With these claims, Zeno convinced his Ostrogothic vassals that Odoacer was an enemy and should be removed. Zeno promised Theodoric son of Amal and his Ostrogoths the Italian peninsula if they were to defeat and remove Odoacer. In the same year, 488, Theodoric led the Ostrogoths across the Julian Alps and into Italy. With this betrayal, the Byzantines killed two birds with one stone. They removed the Ostrogoths from the Balkans and their border and at the same time conveniently caused Odoacer to disappear from the scene.

Death

Theodoric and his Ostrogoths defeated Odoacer at Aquileia in 488, at Verona in 489, and at the Adda River in 490. In that same year, Theodoric besieged Odoacer at Ravenna. The siege lasted three years and was marked by dozens of attacks on both sides. In the end, neither side could conclusively prevail, and so on 2 February 493, Theodoric and Odoacer signed a treaty that ensured a shared rule over Italy. A banquet was organized in order to celebrate this treaty. It was at this banquet that Theodoric, after making a toast, killed Odoacer with his own hands.

Theodoric became the new king of Italy and established an Ostrogothic kingdom that was ruled from Ravenna. The remainder of Odoacer's foederati joined the Ostrogoths and were allowed to remain in Italy. Many of the fathers of these warriors and a number of the warriors themselves had fought together with the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454.

The events around the Battle of Ravenna were used in the Germanic heroic saga of Dietrich von Bern (Theodoric of Verona). The event in which Theodoric kills Odoacer with his own hands is mirrored in the saga in the episode in which Dietrich kills the Dwarf King Laurin.

Notes

  1. ^ Odoacer
  2. ^ Marcellinus, Cassiodorus, and some Papal documents, which come the closest to implying officiality of the title, all refer to him as rex (or one of its declensions). Jordanes at one point refers to him as Gothorum Romanorum que regnator: ruler of the Goths and the Romans. He is called an autokrator (autocrat, dictator) and a tyrranos (usurper, tyrant) in Procopius' Bellum Gothicum. The only reference to Odoacer as "King of Italy" is in Victor Vitensis: Odouacro Italiae regi.
  3. ^ Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I, Chap. XXXVI (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952), p. 590.

Sources

  • Thompson, E. A. Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. ISBN 0 299 08700 X.
Preceded by
Romulus Augustus
as Western Roman Emperor
King of Italy
476–493
Succeeded by
Theodoric the Great

 
 

 

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