ication with his
over-lord and the eastern provinces of what was, rightly understood,
the reunited empire.

That, theoretically at least, is how Odoacer regarded the state in
which, by the good pleasure of the emperor Zeno, he held the title of
patrician. He was an unlettered man, an Arian, as were all the
barbarians, and he held what he held by permission of Constantinople,
though he had won it by his own strength in the weakness and misery of
the time. He never aspired, it would seem, to make himself emperor.
Certainly for the first four years of his rule in Ravenna that great
office was filled by Julius Nepos in exile at Salona, whose deposition
at the hands of Orestes had never been recognised by Constantinople.
Thereafter, the western and the eastern empire were in theory
reunited, with New Rome upon the Bosphorus for their true capital; and
both before and after that event Odoacer ruled in Italy with the title
of patrician conferred upon him by Constantinople. When that consent
was withdrawn, as it was immediately Odoacer showed signs of ambition,
he fell.

Odoacer had ruled in Ravenna from 476 to 493, when he fell in that
city after sustaining a siege of three years. He ruled well and
strongly and by the laws of the empire. He was compelled by the
barbaric confederates, who had placed him where he was, to grant them
a third of the lands, certainly, of the great Italian landowners; but
he created nothing new; like all the barbarians he was sterile, his
only service was a service of destruction. With him even this service
was small.

His fall was curious and is exceedingly significant.

In 481, after the murder of the emperor Julius Nepos in Salona,
Odoacer led an expedition into Dalmatia to chastise the murderers and
seized the opportunity to make himself master of Dalmatia. This action
at once renewed the suspicion of Constantinople; but when in 484
Odoacer entered into negotiations with Illus, the last of the
insurgents who disturbed the reign of Zeno, Constantinople decided
that he must be broken; therefore Feletheus, king of the Rugians upon
the Danube, was stirred up against him, and when that failed, for
Odoacer defeated him, Constantinople sent Theodoric and his
Ostrogothic host into Italy to dispose of Odoacer the patrician[1].

[Footnote 1: Cf. Anon. Valesii, "Missus ab imperatore Zenone de
partibus orientis ad defendendam sibi Italiam...."]

Theodoric, another unlettered barbarian and heretic, bu