Early Middle Ages

Who was the last Roman emperor?

Romulus Augustulus, a teenage emperor deposed by Odoacer in 476, is conventionally the last Roman emperor of the West, but the title is complicated.

Question & answer

Short answer

The last Roman emperor of the West is conventionally Romulus Augustulus, a teenage emperor deposed by the Germanic chieftain Odoacer on September 4, 476 CE. The name Romulus was a deliberate evocation of the legendary founder of Rome, while the diminutive Augustulus, “little Augustus,” was a nickname that has stuck to him ever since.

A longer answer

The title “last Roman emperor” is more complicated than it sounds. There are at least three different ways to answer it, depending on what one means.

The last western emperor: Romulus Augustulus

If the question is “who was the last person to hold the title of Roman emperor in the West?”, the answer is Romulus Augustulus, who ruled in 475–476. He was the son of Orestes, a Roman general of Germanic origin who had served as magister militum and who deposed the previous emperor, Julius Nepos, in 475. Orestes placed his son on the throne, but the young emperor was a figurehead with no real power.

On September 4, 476, the Germanic foederati in Italy revolted under their chieftain Odoacer. They captured and executed Orestes, and they deposed Romulus Augustulus. Odoacer spared the young emperor’s life, a notable act of clemency, and sent him into comfortable retirement in Campania, where he disappears from the historical record. The imperial regalia were sent to Constantinople.

The deposition of Romulus Augustulus is the conventional end of the Western Roman Empire. The story of his deposed predecessor, Julius Nepos, is told below.

The last legitimate western emperor: Julius Nepos

If one insists on legitimacy, the last western emperor was Julius Nepos, who was deposed by his own general Orestes in 475. The eastern emperor Zeno, who had been the one to elevate Nepos, never recognized the deposition, and Nepos continued to be regarded as the legitimate western emperor until his assassination in 480. Nepos’s rival Romulus Augustulus, by contrast, was always considered a usurper, even by the eastern government.

In this sense, the western imperial line technically ended not in 476 but in 480, with Nepos’s death. The story of the last years of the western Empire is told in the The Last Western Emperors.

The last Roman emperor of all: Constantine XI

If the question is taken to mean the last Roman emperor in any sense, the answer is Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, who died on the walls of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, fighting the Ottoman Turks. The eastern Roman Empire, which we now call the Byzantine Empire, had continued, in various forms, for nearly another thousand years after the fall of the western Empire.

This long continuation is the subject of the Survival of the Eastern Roman Empire. From the perspective of the eastern emperors, the fall of the western Empire was not the end of Rome but a temporary loss of the western provinces, which Justinian partially recovered in the sixth century.

The Life of Romulus Augustulus

Very little is known about Romulus Augustulus. He was born around 460, the son of Orestes, a Roman general of Germanic origin. He was named Romulus, after the legendary founder of Rome, and given the title Augustus in 475, when his father made him emperor. He is sometimes referred to as Romulus II to distinguish him from the earlier Romulus, the founder of Rome.

Almost no contemporary sources mention him. The most important account is the Chronography of 354, an illustrated Roman calendar that continued to be used long after the fall of the Empire, and the various Greek and Latin chronicles of the fifth and sixth centuries. The historians Procopius, Marcellinus, and Jordanes mention him only briefly.

The fact that so little is known about Romulus Augustulus reflects his insignificance. He was a teenage puppet emperor, with no real power and no real impact on the events of his time. He has become famous only because his deposition is conventionally taken as the end of the Western Roman Empire.

The figure who really mattered in 476 was his father Orestes, and the figure who really ended the western Empire was Odoacer. The biography of Odoacer is in the Who was Odoacer?.

The Symbolic Importance of Romulus Augustulus

The symbolic association of Romulus Augustulus with the end of the Western Roman Empire is fitting. His very name combined the legendary founder of Rome with the first imperial title, Augustus, and his deposition marked the end of the imperial institution in the West. The diminutive Augustulus, “little Augustus,” was a nickname that has been used to lampoon him ever since, but it also captures the smallness of the western Empire in its final years.

The story of the last emperor has been told many times. Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ends with the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, a literary choice that cemented the association. Modern historians have tended to be more skeptical, pointing out that the fall was a long process and that the deposition of one teenage puppet was less important than the broader structural changes that made the western Empire unviable.

Conclusion

The last Roman emperor of the West was Romulus Augustulus, deposed in 476. The last legitimate western emperor was Julius Nepos, deposed in 475 and assassinated in 480. The last Roman emperor of all was Constantine XI, who died at the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Each of these answers captures a different aspect of the long and complex history of the Roman Empire.