40 Fun Facts About Odoacer

Which boy emperor, often called the last ruler of the Western Roman Empire, did Odoacer depose in September 476?

Romulus Augustulus had reigned for only ten months, and his nickname means little Augustus, a jab at his youth. Odoacer named no successor.

Which Ostrogothic king invaded Italy in 489 and killed Odoacer with his own sword four years later?

Theodoric struck Odoacer down ten days after entering his capital under a peace deal. He went on to govern Italy for more than thirty years and is remembered as Theodoric the Great.

According to one early account, the man who killed Odoacer remarked that the dead king's body seemed to have no what?

Bones were what the victor claimed to find missing after his sword reportedly cut Odoacer almost in two. Odoacer's own last words were said to be a question: where is God?

Where was Odoacer when his Ostrogothic rival killed him in March 493, soon after the two agreed a peace treaty?

At a banquet meant to seal their reconciliation, the invader turned on his guest. Odoacer's followers were hunted down afterwards, leaving the killer as sole master of Italy.

Which city on Italy's Adriatic coast served as Odoacer's capital and held out through a three-year siege?

Ravenna had been the seat of the Western emperors since 402, so Odoacer simply took over their court. The city later became the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom too.

The man usually identified as Odoacer's father, Edeco, served which feared ruler as an envoy and trusted commander?

Attila sent Edeco as his ambassador to the Eastern court. Not every historian accepts that this envoy was Odoacer's father, because one ancient writer calls him a Hun.

According to a saint's biography, what did the young Odoacer have to do inside the holy man's cell?

To stoop beneath the roof was the only way a man so tall could stand in the low cell. One historian cites the detail as evidence that Odoacer was no Hun, since ancient writers describe the Huns as short.

What did Odoacer grant the boy emperor he deposed and sent to a fortified villa in southern Italy?

A yearly pension of 6,000 gold solidi went with the boy into a comfortable exile. One early chronicler says Odoacer was moved to mercy by the emperor's youth and good looks.

After deposing the last Western emperor, what did Odoacer send to Constantinople to show Italy needed no new one?

The imperial regalia went east with a message that one emperor was enough for the whole Roman world. Odoacer then governed Italy in the Eastern emperor's name while keeping real power himself.

What did Odoacer's barbarian troops demand in 476, a request whose refusal sparked the revolt that made him king?

Land in Italy was the prize: by one account the troops wanted a third of the peninsula's estates. Once in power, Odoacer shared out farms to his men with little resistance.

Which Mediterranean island did Odoacer persuade the Vandal king Gaiseric to hand over within months of taking power?

Sicily came back in exchange for an annual tribute, a deal struck only months before the old Vandal king died. It was Odoacer's first diplomatic coup.

Which Roman institution backed Odoacer throughout his reign and gained enough prestige to issue copper coins?

The Senate worked with Odoacer so closely that copper coins again carried its mark, for the first time since the third century. He filled the consulship and other top offices from its old families.

What natural defence surrounding Odoacer's capital let the city hold out for three years against the Ostrogoths?

Marshes and estuaries ringed the city, and small boats kept it fed from the countryside. The besiegers only tightened their grip once they had gathered ships to close the sea approach.

In 487 Odoacer marched out of Italy and crushed a hostile Germanic kingdom on the far bank of which river?

The Danube had been Rome's frontier for centuries, and Odoacer crossed it to capture the enemy king near modern Vienna. He then pulled the remaining Roman civilians back to Italy.

Which Eastern Roman emperor recognised Odoacer as ruler of Italy, then sent the Ostrogoths to overthrow him?

Zeno had only just won back his own throne from a usurper when Odoacer's envoys arrived. A dozen years later he solved two problems at once by pointing the restless Ostrogoths at Italy.

Which Roman rank of honour did the Eastern emperor grant Odoacer to give his rule over Italy a legal footing?

Patrician was the rank held before him by the generals who had really run the West. The emperor added that Odoacer ought to have asked the exiled Western ruler for it instead.

Which form of Christianity, condemned as heresy at the Council of Nicaea, did Odoacer follow while ruling Italy?

Arianism, which denied that Christ was equal to God the Father, was common among Germanic peoples. Odoacer still got on well with Catholic clergy and rarely meddled in their affairs.

Which exiled Western emperor, living across the Adriatic, did Odoacer nominally recognise and name on his coins?

Julius Nepos had been driven out of Italy a year before Odoacer's coup, yet the Eastern court still counted him the lawful Western emperor. Odoacer minted in his name and never let him return.

Which region across the Adriatic did Odoacer invade and annex after its exiled emperor was murdered in 480?

Dalmatia fell to Odoacer after he posed as the dead emperor's avenger and hunted down the killers. The conquest pushed his kingdom to the eastern shore of the Adriatic.

Which Roman general, who made his own young son emperor, was captured and executed by Odoacer's rebels in August 476?

Orestes had driven the previous emperor into exile only a year earlier. He refused his troops' demands and was dead within days of their revolt.

On 23 August 476 Odoacer's soldiers acclaimed him with which Latin title, days before he took the emperor's capital?

Rex, the Latin for king, was a title Romans had shunned since driving out their own kings almost a thousand years earlier. Odoacer used it in the one document that survives from his chancery.

What Latin name did Rome give the allied barbarian troops, bound by treaty, whom Odoacer commanded in Italy?

Foederati comes from foedus, the Latin for a treaty, and such troops had been quartered across Italy for years by 476. That summer it was they who decided who governed.

In September 489 Odoacer fortified a camp outside which northern Italian city, only to lose his second battle there?

Verona saw the Ostrogothic king lead his troops in person and win decisively. Odoacer fled for his capital, leaving the road west open to the invaders.

Which saint, visited by the young Odoacer on the road to Italy, foretold that the ragged soldier would be famous?

Severinus, a holy man on the northern frontier, told him to go on to Italy, where he would soon be handing out rich gifts. The saint is now a patron of Austria.

Which Germanic people, stirred against Italy by the Eastern emperor, lost their king Feletheus to Odoacer in 487?

The Rugii gave their name to Rugiland, a kingdom in what is now Lower Austria. Odoacer's victory destroyed it, and the survivors went over to his Ostrogothic enemies.

The seaside fortress where Odoacer exiled the last Western emperor survives as Castel dell'Ovo in which Italian city?

Naples still shows off the site, which began as the pleasure villa of the Roman general Lucullus. The deposed emperor may later have helped found a monastery there.

According to the historian Procopius, in which role did Odoacer serve at the Western court before he seized power?

Imperial bodyguard is how Procopius introduces him. In that account the mutinous troops found their leader in the guardsman, who agreed to back their demands if they made him ruler.

What did the treaty that ended the long siege of Odoacer's capital in 493 promise the two rival kings?

Joint rule of Italy was the deal, brokered by the city's bishop after years of stalemate. Odoacer was dead ten days after his rival entered the gates.

Odoacer's brother, hunted after the king's murder, was shot by archers after fleeing into what kind of building?

A church offered no sanctuary to Odoacer's brother, a former Eastern general who had stood by him to the end. Odoacer's wife was also killed, and his exiled son later met the same fate.

Odoacer's father Edeco led which East Germanic people, crushed by the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia around 469?

The Sciri vanish from the record as an independent people after that defeat. Odoacer led most of the survivors into Italy to join the Roman army, the first step on his road to a throne.

Gregory of Tours records an Odoacer allying with Childeric I, father of Clovis and king of which people?

The Franks under Childeric joined this Odoacer to subdue the Alamanni, and many scholars think he was the future king of Italy. If so, he was a roving warlord long before 476.

Which people's king, Alaric II, sent an army in 490 that forced Odoacer to abandon his siege of Pavia?

The Visigoths, whose kingdom was centred on Toulouse, sent the relief army in a rare show of Gothic solidarity. Freed from the siege, the invaders beat Odoacer in the field again that August.

While Odoacer and the Ostrogoths fought over Italy, which people raided Liguria and carried off Roman captives?

The Burgundians struck while both armies were busy with each other. Their captives stayed in bondage until the Ostrogothic king ransomed them three years later.

Which Old High German heroic poem names Odoacer, as Otacher, as the enemy who drove its hero into exile?

The Hildebrandslied has the old warrior Hildebrand flee east from Otacher's wrath, leaving a wife and small child behind. Later retellings swapped Odoacer for a different villain.

In 472 Odoacer sided with which barbarian-born kingmaker in the civil war that toppled the emperor Anthemius?

Ricimer had made and unmade emperors for sixteen years, and died six weeks after this last victory. Odoacer is said to have hastened the emperor's fall by switching sides to join him.

When Bishop Epiphanius of Pavia petitioned Odoacer for his war-ravaged region, what did the king grant its people?

Five tax-free years gave the region time to rebuild after the fighting of 476. The same bishop later talked the king into curbing a grasping praetorian prefect.

In 489 most of Odoacer's army surrendered to the Ostrogoths at Mediolanum, known today as which Italian city?

Milan had itself been an imperial capital a century earlier, and its loss handed the invaders the north. Odoacer won the city back the following year during his counter-attack.

Which range of the Alps did the Ostrogoths cross in 489 to invade Odoacer's Italy from the north-east?

The Julian Alps, in today's Slovenia and north-east Italy, were the classic way into the peninsula from the Balkans. Odoacer met the invaders at the first river beyond the passes and lost.

A memorial plate of 1521 naming Odoacer survives in the catacombs of St Peter's Abbey in which Austrian city?

Salzburg's plate calls him king of the Ruthenians and has him invading the region in 477. Historians dismiss it as a legend, though it has fed some inventive theories about his origins.

As war with the Ostrogoths loomed, Odoacer stopped minting in the emperor's name and gave his son Thela which title?

Caesar was the rank of a junior emperor and heir, a pointed choice as he broke with the Eastern court. Thela was later exiled and killed by his father's conqueror.