Captivating History - The Holy Roman Empire: A Captivating Guide to the Union of Smaller Kingdoms That Started During the Early Middle Ages and Dissolved During the Napoleonic Wars

Historians still remain in dispute over the ethnicity of Flavius Odoacer.

A tall, lean, powerfully built man, Odoacer was a soldier from the top of his head to the worn-out soles of his boots. The naked sword in his hand was not quite as sharp as the flash of fire in his eyes as he towered over the emperor of ancient Rome, demanding his surrender. Whether he was a member of the Germanic tribes acting independently, a former soldier of the Roman army, or even a Hun, it mattered little to the young emperor, Romulus Augustus, who now faced Odoacers bare blade. Romulus had been raised in a cushioned and privileged life in Ravenna as the son of an important commander in the Roman army, and he knew only one thing for sure about the strange mustachioed man who was bent on killing him unless he gave up the empire: Odoacer was a barbarian. And to the noble-blooded young Roman, barbarian meant anyone who came from outside the borders of his empire.

Once, the Roman Empire had been the greatest power in Europe, its borders stretching all the way from Egypt to Great Britain to Gaul to Asia Minor. But now, it was reduced to this single moment: a teenage emperor cowering before a barbarian, trying to decide whether or not to surrender.

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It was somewhat ironic that Romulus Augustus, who is often seen as the last emperor of Rome, bore those names.

His first name, Romulus, was then widely believed to be the root of the name Rome. The foundation myth of ancient Rome revolves around two brothers named Romulus and Remus, the sons of a Vestal Virgin and either Mars (the Roman god of war) or Hercules (a demigod hero in Roman mythology). Like Moses in the Nile, Romulus and Remus were thrown into the Tiber River of Italy as babies by a vengeful ruler, being swept away on its turbulent waters. Washed up on the shore, a wild she-wolf discovered the two little babies and suckled them, keeping them alive until a shepherd stumbled upon them and adopted them as his own. As adults, Romulus and Remus were determined to found a city on the very hills that they had roamed with their wild parent when they were just babies. When they couldnt agree on which hill to build the city on, Romulus killed Remus and built his city on Palatine Hill, giving the city his nameRome.

This story is now known to be pure mythology. In fact, the city of Rome was likely the result of a group of villages banding together against a common foe sometime in the 7 th century BCE. The fledgling town proved to be more powerful than expected; military conquest after military conquest developed it into the city of Rome, and soon, it was ruled over by six kings whogenerallyworked together to grow their communal power. However, this history had been largely forgotten by the Romans themselves in the hundreds of years between the founding of Rome around 625 BCE and the birth of its last emperor in 460 CE, and they firmly believed in the myth of Romulus and Remus. Romulus Augustus father, Orestes, was a general of the Roman army in a time when the once-great Roman Empire was falling apart. Perhaps envisioning a rebirth of its former glory, he named his child after its mythical founder.