Romulus Augustulus
Romulus Augustulus was about fifteen when he was made western Roman emperor and about sixteen when he was pensioned off. He was the son of Orestes, a Roman officer from Pannonia who had served as a secretary to Attila and had risen to command the army of Italy — which by 475 was almost entirely composed of Germanic federate troops. Orestes deposed the reigning emperor Julius Nepos in August 475 and installed his own son in October rather than take the throne himself, presumably because a boy could be governed and a general could not be legitimised. The eastern court never recognised him, and Nepos continued to be regarded as the lawful western emperor from exile in Dalmatia until his murder in 480. The reign lasted ten months and produced no coinage of consequence, no legislation and no recorded act. The federates then demanded a third of the land of Italy for settlement, Orestes refused, and the army made Odoacer king and killed him. Odoacer took Ravenna in September 476 and, according to the account in Jordanes, was moved by the boy's youth and beauty to spare him, granting him a pension of 6,000 solidi and a residence in Campania — the villa of Lucullus at Misenum, on the bay of Naples. Nothing further is recorded of him with certainty. Both his names are diminutives applied mockingly: little Augustus, and the founder of Rome as the man who ended it. A letter from Theodoric's minister Cassiodorus around 507 addresses a wealthy Romulus in Campania about a pension, which may or may not be him. The last western emperor's death is unrecorded, which is a fair emblem for the way the western empire ended.
- Lived: 461 CE – 508 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: leader
