(7) LAST WESTERN EMPERORS –
LIBIUS SEVERUS, OLYBRIUS, GLYCERIUS, ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS, JULIUS NEPOS, AVITUS & ANTHEMIUS
(455-456 & 461-476 AD)

The archetypal weak emperors of the dying western empire – embodying the terminal decline of imperial office to the figureheads or puppets of the barbarian warlords who ruled the empire or its remnants in all but name.

Best symbolized by the “last western emperor”, Romulus Augustulus, whose deposition by Odoacer marked the end of the western empire as political entity and proverbial Fall of the Roman Empire – with the perfect irony of being named for Rome’s legendary founder and derisively nicknamed Augustulus or little Augustus.

Youtuber Dovhahhatty said it best – “When Odoacer broke through Ravenna’s gates, he didn’t find the all-powerful emperor of the civilized world…instead he found a weak, trembling child unable to protect himself, much less the people he nominally ruled”.

Their archetypal weakness is such that you could arguably swap all of them into my top ten worst emperors and indeed I considered Romulus Augustulus for my wildcard tenth place given how well he symbolized them as well as the irony of his name.

Such was the power of that irony that historians traditionally identified him as the last western emperor, even though the claim arguably belongs to Julius Nepos (and others asserted imperial claims even afterwards), and his deposition as the Fall of the Empire.

“Romulus being seen as the last emperor over other contenders derives not only from Romulus having been the last emperor proclaimed in the west, but also from the poetic nature of being named after both Romulus, the founder of Rome, and Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Many historians have noted the coincidence that the last emperor combined the names of both the city’s founder and the first emperor. In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon wrote that “the appellations of the two great founders of the city and of the monarchy were thus strangely united in the last of their successors.””

In the end, I considered that they ranked special mention as opposed to other emperors with more notorious cruelty and depravity or that were more actively destructive – above all from a position or at a time of supreme imperial power.

These last western emperors may have been archetypally weak, but that wasn’t so much any particular emperor and was a quality of the position of emperor itself by then – once of course Majorian’s reign and reversal of fortune for the empire was taken out of the equation. And intentionally so, by the military commanders who sought to use emperors as puppets, until the barbarian warlord Odoacer decided to dispense with such puppets altogether.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine that even those emperors in my top ten best emperors could have done much from the position of the last western emperors who ruled after Majorian.

So I also considered that it wouldn’t be fair to simply rank the last non-dynastic western Roman emperors in my top ten worst emperors – with the notable exception of Petronius Maximus, whom I did consider to be actively destructive enough for my wildcard tenth place entry. That’s so even for poor Romulus Augustulus despite the notoriety of his name and status as the last western emperor, particularly given that he was a child briefly enthroned by his father as his nickname signified.

However, I have decided to rank them all together in one special mention, although arguably that’s not fair to two or three of them, who might otherwise rank somewhat more favorably as not as archetypally weak as the others or at least put up some resistance to the weakness of their position.

So here goes ranking them within the special mention, from worst to best.

First, the four who rank as the archetypal weak last western roman emperors:

LIBIUS SEVERUS (461-465 AD: 3 YEARS 11 MONTHS 26 DAYS)

I see no reason to dissent from Dovahhatty’s assessment that the German commander Ricimer deliberately “arranged for the weakest, most pathetic of men to be his puppet” – particularly as he did so after Majorian and would have been determined to avoid another such figure. He was rumored to have been poisoned by Ricimer to abandon him for a candidate more appealing to the eastern empire.

OLYBRIUS (472 AD: 7 MONTHS)

The oily Olybrius comes in next, with the distinction of being a puppet twice over – for the Vandals and for Ricimer, before dying of illness.

GLYCERIUS (473-474 AD: 1 YEAR 3 MONTHS 19/21 DAYS)

Glycerius was at least not the puppet of Ricimer, because that rat had finally died during the reign of his predecessor Olybrius – instead he was the puppet of Gundobad, the new German military commander, until Gundobad decided to abandon him. Also at least during his reign, he managed to deter invasions of Italy by the Visigoths and Ostrogoths – the former by his local commanders repelling it and the second by paying them tribute in gold. He was not recognized by the eastern emperor, who instead sent an army to install its candidate, Julius Nepos – although Glycerius managed to peacefully abdicate and be ordained a bishop

ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS (475-476 AD: 10 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

Still a weak puppet emperor but I give him bonus points because he was a child. Also, at least he was a puppet of a Roman commander, his father Orestes. Orestes was smart enough to not claim the throne for himself, given how dangerous that particular seat was by this time, but ruling through his son as figurehead didn’t really work out for him either. The barbarian general Odoacer defeated and killed him, deposing Romulus as well and dispensing with any western emperor altogether, ruling as the new barbarian king of Italy. Odoacer was surprising decent about it all, including sparing Romulus to live in peaceful retirement.

And now the three who rank somewhat above the other last western roman emperors for at least trying to do something

JULIUS NEPOS (474-475 AD: 1 YEAR 2 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

Julius Nepos was the eastern empire’s candidate for western emperor who deposed Glycerius, but was deposed in turn by the Roman commander Orestes. Bonus points for retreating to his home province of Dalmatia and continuing to claim the western imperial title from there, with the continued recognition of the eastern empire – effectively seceding from and even outlasting Roman imperial rule in Italy until he was killed in 480, by two of his generals while planning an expedition to recover Italy. Ironically, even Odoacer paid lip service to him as emperor, minting coins in his name but otherwise ignoring him – which was pretty much also what the eastern empire did as well, recognizing him but otherwise not giving him any actual support.

He had also worked to restore the western empire in his brief reign – possibly repelling a Visigothic invasion of Italy and also managing to again reduce the Burgundians to Roman foederati, but otherwise mostly unsuccessful in reviving Roman power in Gaul, unable to halt Visigothic conquests there.

AVITUS (455-456 AD: 1 YEAR 3 MONTHS 8 DAYS)

Absent a revival of Roman power under a figure such as Majorian, the western empire didn’t seem to have much prospect for survival on its own but two options involving an alliance or merger with the only states that could save it. Avitus tried for the first – a Romano-Gothic alliance, from which one might even speculate on an enduring western Romano-Gothic empire (particularly if it involved both Visigoths and Ostrogoths).

Avitus had a good relationship with the Visigoths, the best and most loyal of Rome’s Germanic foederati – particularly their king Theodoric II, having come out of retirement to fight alongside the previous king Theodoric and the supreme Roman commander Aetius as allies against the Huns. He was sent as an ambassador to Theodoric II, probably to seek support for the emperor, although he loses points for that emperor being Petronius Maximus. In the meantime however, Petronius Maximus was killed by the Roman mob and the Vandals sacked Rome, so Theodoric II acclaimed him as emperor instead.

Avitus opposed the reduction of the empire to Italy alone – one might think for good reasons of Gaul being both as I understand it the remaining reliable source of army recruitment in the western empire and also his power base, bringing a Gallic army (and probably Gothic forces) with him to Italy as well as seeking to introduce Gallic senators into the imperial administration.

And pretty much everyone in Rome hated him for it as the “foreign” emperor – as per Spectrum “the army, the Senate, the people, the east”. So yes – he was deposed for his trouble but spared on condition that he became a bishop, although he may well have been killed afterwards anyway.

ANTHEMIUS (467-472 AD: 5 YEARS 2 MONTHS 29 DAYS)

Generally recognized as the last effective western emperor – and perhaps not coincidentally the one with the longest reign – Anthemius tried for the second and more obvious of the two options for alliance or support, the eastern empire, not surprisingly reflecting that he came from there as its candidate for western emperor.

“Anthemius attempted to solve the two primary military challenges facing the remains of the Western Roman Empire: the resurgent Visigoths, under Euric, whose domain straddled the Pyrenees; and the unvanquished Vandals, under Geiseric, in undisputed control of North Africa”.

He even had the support of the eastern empire for the latter, with the eastern empire launching its own massive invasion fleet against the Vandal kingdom in north Africa – something that would have been much better timed with Majorian’s planned campaign against the Vandals. Sadly, the eastern empire screwed this up, with the catastrophic defeat of its fleet and consequent near bankruptcy of their empire for thirty years or so.

Predictably, Anthemius ran afoul of Ricimer – “Unlike most of his predecessors, Anthemius refused to yield, and his insistence on ruling independently brought him into conflict with Ricimer. This eventually escalated into open warfare between the two, with the result that Anthemius lost not only his throne, but also his head, in 472.”

RATING: 1 STAR*
F-TIER (WORST TIER)
EMPIRE-BREAKERS (although they were really more broken emperors at that point)