4236 AM · 476 CE · world history
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
The last western emperor is deposed, and antiquity in Europe comes to an end.
The Germanic commander Odoacer retires the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus, appoints no successor, and sends the imperial regalia to Constantinople. Contemporaries barely noticed—the collapse had taken decades. But with it went the imperial post, common coinage, long-distance trade and literacy outside the church.
Sources
Documents of the period
- inscriptions and coinage of the Roman Empire — the cessation of western imperial coinage after 476
Scholarship
- late Roman chronicles and historians (Jordanes, Procopius) — the deposing of Romulus Augustulus and the sending of the regalia to Constantinople
Basis: documents and evidence.