Odoacer

• 1. Introduction

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  Odoacer, a barbarian soldier from the Middle Danube, changed the map of the ancient world on the 4th of September 476, when he forced the Western Roman child emperor Romulus Augustulus to abdicate. That single act has been understood ever since as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire. Yet Odoacer himself never claimed that title. He called himself rex, king, and accepted the rank of patrician from the Eastern emperor in Constantinople. He was at once the destroyer of one world order and the architect of something new. How did a soldier of uncertain tribal origins, arriving in Italy clad, in the words of a holy man, in "mean hides", come to govern the heartland of the Roman world for seventeen years? And what brought that reign to its brutal end at a banquet table?

• 2. A Name Without a Tribe

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  Scholars have debated the very meaning of the name Odoacer for centuries, because the name itself may be the only clue to his tribal roots. The traditional reading traces it to two Germanic elements: "auda", meaning luck or wealth, and "wakra", meaning vigilant or lively. A cognate of this form even appears in the Old English poem Wulf and Eadwacer, where Old English renders the earlier Germanic sound "au" as "ea." Yet historians Robert L. Reynolds and Robert S. Lopez challenged that reading, proposing instead that the name could be a form of the Turkic "Ot-toghar", meaning grass-born or fire-born, or the shorter "Ot-ghar", meaning herder.

  His father was named Edeco, and the debate about that name runs just as deep. The historian Omeljan Pritsak considered it Turkic; Peter Heather continued to regard it as Germanic. Odoacer's brother Hunulf, whose name is generally accepted as the Germanic "Hun wolf", complicates the picture further, since the element "hun" may refer to the Huns themselves. His son appears in ancient sources under two different names, Thelan and Oklan; Reynolds and Lopez compared these to Turkic names, noting that Oklan closely resembles the Turkish-Tatar word "oghlan", meaning youth.

  Historians Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen and Walter Pohl warned against treating name etymology as a reliable guide to ancestry at all. As Pohl emphasized, the same person could be considered Hunnic or Germanic under different circumstances, especially during the upheavals that followed Attila's death. Odoacer's world was one in which ethnic labels were fluid. His father Edeco was described by Priscus as a trusted man of Attila and ambassador to Constantinople; Priscus called him a Scythian in one passage and a Hun in another. A passage from Eugippius's Life of Saint Severinus offered one vivid physical note: Odoacer was so tall he had to bend to pass through a doorway, which historian Bruce Macbain considered strong evidence against a Hunnic identity, since ancient sources described the Huns as shorter than Romans.

  Historians Penny MacGeorge and Macbain concluded that Odoacer was likely half-Scirian and half-Thuringian. The 10th-century Suda, in a fragment thought to have been written by the near-contemporary historian Malchus, identified his brother Hunulf as Thuringian on his father's side and Scirian on his mother's side. Jordanes, writing in the 6th century, described Odoacer in one passage as king of the Turcilingi with Scirian and Heruli followers, and in another as a descendant of the Rugii or of a person named Rogus of the Turcilingi.

• 3. From Prophet to Revolt

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  John of Antioch reported that Odoacer was 60 years old when he died in 493, placing his birth at around 433. Gregory of Tours preserved two early references to military leaders bearing his name. In the first, a figure called Adovacrius led a group of Saxons at the mouth of the Loire in battles around 463 alongside Childeric, king of the Franks, and a Roman commander named Aegidius. Matthias Springer noted that Odoacer's possible involvement with Saxons in northern Europe at this time would be consistent with Thuringian ancestry, since the term Saxon in this period was not necessarily a distinct ethnic label.

  In a second account, an Odovacrius allied with Childeric against the Alamanni, who had been causing problems in Italy. This figure, bearing the "o" spelling associated with the future king, is the more likely candidate for Odoacer before he reached the peninsula.

  Before that arrival, he stopped to visit the holy man Severinus. Eugippius recorded the scene in his Life of Saint Severinus: Odoacer was "a young man, of tall figure, clad in poor clothes", and though he was Arian and Severinus was Catholic, the encounter left a deep impression. As Odoacer departed, Severinus spoke words that would prove prophetic: "Go to Italy, go, now covered with mean hides; soon you will make rich gifts to many."

  By 470, Odoacer had become an officer in what remained of the Roman Army. John of Antioch placed him on the side of Ricimer during Ricimer's battle with the emperor Anthemius in 472, saying that Odoacer had "hastened the emperor's downfall" by switching sides. Procopius described him as one of the emperor's bodyguards, and said he agreed to the position only on condition that he be placed in charge of them.

  When Orestes was appointed Magister militum and patrician by the Western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos in 475, Odoacer became head of the barbarian foederati forces in Italy. Before the year was out, Orestes had driven Nepos from Italy and made his own young son emperor, proclaiming him Romulus Augustus on the 31st of October. The foederati, quartered in Italy for years, then pressed Orestes to grant them lands as reward for their service. In the words of historian J. B. Bury, "They desired to have roof-trees and lands of their own." Orestes refused. They turned to Odoacer. Orestes was killed at Placentia; his brother Paulus died defending Ravenna. On the 23rd of August 476 the Germanic foederati, the Scirians, the Heruli, and a large part of the Italic Roman army proclaimed Odoacer rex.

• 4. King Without an Empire

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  Romulus Augustulus abdicated on the 4th of September 476. Odoacer, according to the Anonymus Valesianus, was moved by the boy's youth and beauty to spare his life, granting him a pension of 6,000 solidi and sending him to Campania to live with his relatives.

  What happened next shaped the political logic of Odoacer's entire reign. The Roman Senate sent an embassy to the Eastern Emperor Zeno, delivering the Western imperial insignia and a clear message: "one monarch sufficed to rule the world." Zeno accepted their gifts, effectively ending the line of Western puppet emperors. He then conferred on Odoacer the title of patrician and legal authority to govern Italy as dux Italiae, while also suggesting, diplomatically, that Odoacer should welcome the exiled Julius Nepos back as Western emperor "if he truly wished to act with justice." Odoacer accepted the title. He did not invite Nepos. He did, however, issue coins bearing both his image and that of Zeno, maintaining the form of Roman authority.

  When Nepos was murdered by two of his retainers at his country house near Salona on the 9th of May 480, Odoacer took it upon himself to pursue and execute the assassins, then seized Dalmatia for himself.

  Inside Italy, Odoacer governed with notable political skill. As historian A. H. M. Jones observed, the Senate under Odoacer acquired "enhanced prestige and influence" as a counterweight to any desire to restore imperial rule. For the first time since the mid-3rd century, copper coins were issued bearing the legend S(enatus) C(onsulto). Jones described them as "fine big copper pieces", a great improvement on the small nummi previously in circulation; the Vandals copied them in Africa, and they formed the basis of the currency reform later carried out by Anastasius in the Eastern Empire.

  Odoacer regularly nominated senators to the consulship and other prestigious offices. Historian J. B. Bury named the beneficiaries: Basilius, Decius, Venantius, Manlius Boethius, Symmachus, Sividius, and Cassiodorus, who was appointed minister of finance. Though an Arian Christian, Odoacer rarely interfered in the Trinitarian state church. He showed particular esteem for Bishop Epiphanius of Liguria, granting the bishop's petition for a five-year tax immunity for the inhabitants of the region. The biography of Pope Felix III in the Liber Pontificalis recorded the pontiff's tenure as occurring during Odoacer's reign without registering any complaint about the king. Sicily came through a diplomatic deal: Odoacer induced the Vandal king Gaiseric to cede the island to him, a transaction that historian F. M. Clover dated to September or October 476 based on the timing of Gaiseric's death in January 477 and the usual closure of the Mediterranean sea lanes in November.

• 5. War on Two Fronts

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  Odoacer's exchange of messages with Illus, the Eastern magister militum who had been in open revolt against Zeno since 484, gave the Eastern emperor the pretext he needed. Zeno first encouraged the Rugii to attack Italy from the north. Odoacer moved to crush them in 487-488, defeating them north of the Danube, taking their king Feletheus into captivity, and sending his brother Onoulphus back to Noricum when the Rugian king's son Fredericus reappeared. Onoulphus was forced to evacuate the remaining Romans from the region and resettle them in Italy. The Rugians who escaped took refuge with the Ostrogoths; the abandoned province was settled by the Lombards by 493.

  That northern victory was a poisoned one. Having run out of diplomatic options, Zeno unleashed Theodoric the Great and his Ostrogoths, promising them Italy if they removed Odoacer. As historians Herwig Wolfram and Peter Heather pointed out, Theodoric had his own reasons to accept: he had watched Zeno assassinate Armatus within a year of promising him the position of senior imperial general for life.

  Theodoric crossed the Julian Alps in 489. On the 28th of August he met Odoacer at the Isonzo and defeated him. Odoacer withdrew to Verona, set up a fortified camp, and was defeated again three days later. He took refuge in Ravenna while Theodoric advanced to Mediolanum, where Odoacer's chief general Tufa surrendered along with the majority of Odoacer's army. Theodoric dispatched Tufa toward Ravenna with a band of elite soldiers. Wolfram records what happened: "Tufa changed sides, the Gothic elite force entrusted to his command was destroyed, and Theodoric suffered his first serious defeat on Italian soil." Theodoric pulled back to Ticinum. Odoacer emerged and laid siege to him. While both leaders were locked in that standoff, the Burgundians plundered Liguria and took many Romans captive; Theodoric ransomed them three years later.

  The following summer, the Visigothic king Alaric II sent military aid, and on the 11th of August 490 the two armies clashed on the Adda River. Odoacer was defeated again and driven back into Ravenna. Theodoric besieged the city. Ravenna resisted because of geography: it was surrounded by marshes and estuaries, and as Procopius noted, easily supplied by small boats from its hinterlands. Tufa remained at large near Trent in the Adige valley, and desertions from Theodoric's ranks swelled his forces. The Vandals seized the moment to invade Sicily. Fredericus, king of the Rugians and Theodoric's ally, began oppressing the inhabitants of Pavia rather than protecting them; when Theodoric intervened in late August 491, his punitive response drove Fredericus to defect to Tufa.

  On the night of the 9th-the 10th of July 491, Odoacer sent out a large-scale sortie from Ravenna that ended in failure. His commander-in-chief Livilia was killed, along with the best of his Herulian soldiers. On the 29th of August 492, the Goths assembled enough ships at Rimini to blockade the city effectively. John, bishop of Ravenna, brokered a treaty on the 25th of February 493: the two kings would occupy Ravenna together and share joint rule. Theodoric entered the city on the 5th of March.

• 6. The Banquet at the Laurel Grove

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  Ten days after Theodoric entered Ravenna, Odoacer was dead. Theodoric had planned for his followers to kill Odoacer during a feast in the imperial palace of Honorius known as "Ad Laurentum", or "At the Laurel Grove." When that plan went astray, Theodoric drew his own sword and struck Odoacer on the collarbone. To Odoacer's dying question, "Where is God?", Theodoric answered: "This is what you did to my friends." Standing over the body, Theodoric was said to have remarked, "The man has no bones in his body."

  Theodoric then moved to eliminate everyone who had been loyal to Odoacer. His wife Sunigilda was stoned to death. His brother Onoulphus was killed by archers while seeking refuge in a church. His son Thela was exiled to Gaul; when he attempted to return to Italy, Theodoric had him killed.

  Odoacer's legacy proved more durable than his family. He had worked with the Roman Senate rather than against it, issued currency that would influence monetary policy across the Mediterranean, extended tax relief to Liguria through the intercession of Bishop Epiphanius, and built the administrative foundations that Theodoric himself would inherit. The sole document surviving from Odoacer's own chancery bears the title of king, witnessed by the consul Basilius, a reminder that for seventeen years a soldier who had arrived in Italy in poor clothes had governed its people and held its institutions together.