Difference between revisions of "Odoacer"

<p> a Gothic chief who, according to: some authorities, was of the tribe of the Heruli, originally served as a mercenary in the barbarian auxiliary force which the later emperors of the West had taken into their pay for the defense of Italy. After the two rival emperors, Glycerius and [[Julius]] Nepos, were both driven from the throne, Orestes, a soldier from Pannonia, clothed his own son Romulus, yet a minor, with the imperial purple, but retained all the substantial authority in his own hands. The barbarian troops now asked for one third of the lands of Italy to be distributed among them as a reward for their services. [[Orestes]] having rejected their demand, they chose [[Odoacer]] for their leader, and he immediately marched against Orestes, who had shut himself up in Pavia. Odoacer took the city by storm, and gave it up to be plundered by his soldiers. Orestes was taken prisoner and led to Placentia, where he was publicly executed, in August, A.D. 475, exactly a twelvemonth after he had driven [[Nepos]] out of Italy. Romulus, who was called Augustulus by way of derision, was in Ravenna, where he was seized by Odoacer, who stripped him of his imperial ornaments and banished him to a castle of Campania, but allowed him an honorable maintenance. Odoacer now proclaimed himself king of Italy, rejecting the imperial titles of [[Caesar]] and Augustus. For this reason the Western empire is considered as having ended with the deposition of [[Romulus]] Augustulus, the son of Orestes. Odoacer's authority did not extend beyond the boundaries of Italy. Little is known of the events of his reign until the invasion of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who, at the instigation, as some historians assert, of Zeno, emperor of the East, marched from the banks of the Danube to dispossess Odoacer of his kingdom. Theodoric, at the head of a large army defeated Odoacer near Aquileia, and entered [[Verona]] without opposition. Odoacer shut himself up in [[Ravenna]] in 489. The war, however, lasted several years. Odoacer made a brave resistance; but was compelled by famine to surrender Ravenna (March, 493). [[Theodoric]] at first spared his life, but in a short time caused him to he killed, and proclaimed himself king of Italy. English Cyclop. s.v. See Jornandes, De Regnorum success. p. 59, 60; De Rebus Gothicis, p. 128- 141; Paul Diacre, De. Gestis Longobard. 1:19; [[Gregory]] of Tours, Hist. Franc. 2:118 sq.; Procopius, Bell. Goth. 1:1; 2:6; Ennodius, Vita Epiphanii; Cassiodorus, Chron. ad an. 376; Epist. 1:18; Evagrius,:ii. 16; Le Beau, Hist. du Bas. Empire, vol. 35; Gibbon, [[Decline]] and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 36; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 38:481. </p>