Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the fall of the western empire 27
never bothered to return. Events at home were now much more important
to Gundobad than those at the centre.
The army of Dalmatia made one more attempt to sponsor a regime,
when Julius Nepos marched into Italy in 474. Glycerius was deposed
without a struggle and ordained bishop of Salona. One year later, however,
Nepos left again – definitively – in the face of the hostility of Orestes and
the army of Italy. 71 Fittingly, it was the army of Italy which was the last to
give up. In 475, its commander Orestes proclaimed his own son Romulus
emperor, but within a year lost control of his soldiers. Not surprisingly,
given all the resources which had by now been seized by others, it was
shortage of money which caused the unrest. A subordinate commander,
Odoacer, organized a putsch, murdered Orestes, and deposed Romulus,
derisively titled Augustulus, on or around 4 September 476. 72 He then sent
an embassy to Constantinople which did no more than state the obvious.
There was no longer any need for an emperor in the west. 73
4. Romans and barbarians
Alongside, and often as part of, the great power blocs, many millions of
individuals found themselves caught up in the events which brought about
the end of the Roman empire in western Europe. Of these, the surviving
sources allow us to say most about the experiences and reactions of local
landowning élites. As much as the imperial court at Ravenna, the provincial
landowning élites of the west were the Roman empire, in that it was
run by them and for them. Their adherence to it, or lack of it, is thus as
good a measure of the prevalence of empire as are the activities of the
court. The variety of reactions to fifth-century events among even this élite
is very striking, and, thanks to the correspondence of Sidonius Apollinaris,
particularly well documented in the case of Gallo-Roman landowners.
Some local landowning groups throughout the west (outside, perhaps,
Italy) responded quickly to temporary or permanent power vacuums
created by the intrusion of armed immigrants into the western empire. In
Britain, independence was asserted as early as 410, although, as the Saxon
threat grew, some seem to have regretted the decision and wrote to Aetius
(probably in 446) requesting his assistance (Gildas 20). Likewise, in northern,
and particularly north-western, Gaul, many of the groups labelled
bagaudae should probably be understood as representing a similar kind of
phenomenon, rather than, as has sometimes been argued, outright peasant
71 Refs. as PLRE ii.777.
72 Refs. as PLRE ii.811–12. Cf. Procop. Wars v.1.5–8; the troops demanded ‘one-third of the lands
of Italy’; what this means is debated: p. 22 above, n. 53.
73 Malchus, ed. Blockley fr. 14; despite the opening sentence, the rest makes clear Odoacer’s responsibility
for the initiative.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008