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( Romulus Augustus)
Romulus Augustus (c. 461/463 – after 476), also called Romulus Augustulus ("Little Augustus"), was a Western Roman Emperor who reigned from 31 October 475 to 4 September 476. Historically, his reign has been used to mark the fall of Rome and the onset of the Dark Ages. The historical record contains few details of Romulus' life. He was installed as emperor by his father Orestes, the commanding general of the Roman army, after Orestes had deposed the previous emperor Julius Nepos. Romulus, little more than a child, acted as a figurehead for his father's rule. Reigning only ten months, Romulus was deposed by the Germanic chieftain Odoacer and sent to live in the Castellum Lucullanum in Campania; he disappears from the historical record afterward. Romulus' deposition is traditionally cited as the end of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Although the Eastern Roman Empire survived until 1453, Roman authority in Italy and Gaul had all but collapsed by the time of Romulus' reign. Romulus' father Orestes was a Roman citizen, originally from Pannonia, who had served as a secretary and diplomat for Attila the Hun and later rose through the ranks of the Roman Army.[1] The future emperor was named Romulus after his maternal grandfather, a nobleman from Poetovio in Noricum. Many historians have noted the irony that the last western emperor bore the names of the legendary founder of Rome and its first emperor, but this is a coincidence.[2]
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