This is not a POD or a timeline, just curiosity. Who do you think could have succeeded Romulus Augustus had he died a natural death in 476?
Possible WRE Emperors
- Thread starter Tempered Zen
- Start date
Either Odoacer, as OTL (though he wasn't legitimate), or Julius Nepos, if he isn't assassinated in 480.
Odoacer is unlikely to try, as seen by the fact that he didn't claim the purple in OTL. It was unthinkable for a barbarian to be emperor. I think your best bet here is either Nepos or some other Roman aristocrat with enough men to hold onto the title.
That's assuming that the Byzantine Emperors will even recognize the legitimacy of the Imperial office in the west. My bet is that they probably won't.
Well, Julius Nepos is a safe bet would it be only because he was acknowledged as such* by Odoacer in 476 (as it appear on coinage, for instance) and as he was the legitimate WREmperor against Romulus Augustus for what mattered Constantinople.
Of course Julius Nepos' rule over Italy was at best symbolical (he remained in Dalmatia, the only corner of WRE that he actually controlled) and it didn't really lasted long : Odoacer didn't really hesit to support Leontius against Zeno (after having annexed Dalmatia, as Julius was dead).
Giving the right circumstances, you may see another WREmperor barely able to hold on Dalmatia with Constantinople's support after Julius' death. But it's not really a given (the fiction of the WRE wasn't really maintainable anymore), and it would certainly end as IOTL.
EDIT : Also "natural death". Assuming this is not an euphemism for *accident*wink*wink*, it would change little to nothing. Orestes would have lost most of its authority and power anyway, and Odoacer would have been only too happy to appears as IOTL (maybe even more) as the restorer of imperial dignity.
*Not that it doesn't make sense to consider Romulus Augustulus as the last WREmperor, as he was the last to resides in Ravenna, but Julius Nepos was effectivly the last emperor acknowledged in the West that was distinct from whoever was in Constantinople.
A Barbarian couldn't be considered as a Roman emperor, because it opposed two kind of political identity and citizenship.
Theodoric himself recieved a lot of roman titles (Consul, Patrician, Ausustus, Comes, Magister Militiae, etc.) that were (diversely) used by other Barbarian kings, such as Gundobad or Clovis, whom subservience to Constantinople was theoritical but more or less accepted*, but the imperial title was really out of question and it was never contested for centuries.
If Nepos and Dalmatia are lost and Odoacer for whatever reason is in Constantinople's bad books, feasibly, at a stretch, everybody's favourite, Syagrius, has a shot at the title.
Syagrius ruled a small territory in Northern Gaul (probably along a Noyon-Soissons-Senlis triangle), contrary to the (unbased, and dramatically unsourced*) idea of a Roman state spawning from Channel to Meuse (which was essentially a way to "fill the gap" on a map by XIXth cartographers).
Syagrius was hardly unique, while arguably the best known of these regional Roman rulers that fought (not all) but eventually joined with Barbarians (for most). Without making a name-dropping, you have Vicentius in Taracconensis; Apollinaris Sidonius and Ecdicius in Auvergne; Victorius, Desiderius and Namatius in Aquitaine; Syagrius (same family, different guy) and Avitus in Provence, Arbogast in Germania, etc.
These men were invested (or, more often than not, invested themselves) with administrative (militia) roles would it be military (Vicentius was probably trusted the military charge of Taraconnensis by Majorian) or civil (which was generally translated by an episcopalian position, but not always) and as the fall of the Roman state in West only let Barbarian imperium as a legitim authority coming from imperial institutions...
Long story short, a relatively rogue regional ruler as Syagrius doesn't have any real go at succeeding anyone giving the geopolitical conditions.
At best, rather than being defeated, he would end up being absorbated by the leading power in Gaul, Auvergne-style : one could argue that a Gothic defeat at Déols in 470 could turn the table enough for allowing this relatively easily even in the (likely) case of a Frankish takeover.
But with a 476 PoD, even just this wouldn't be that obvious, as the defeat really did a number on whatever remained of Roman authority in Gaul.
Regardless of what happen there, there's no chance Syagrius can claim the imperium (or anyone in the region) : you'd sooner see a random Italian patrician or honestior being proclaimed emperor by whoever want to pull a Ricimer which, giving the state of Italy, is going to fail sooner or later and rather sooner than later.
*Syagrius is mentioned twice by Gregory of Tours, two short sentences without any indication he ruled more than Soissons.
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There is an interesting POD buried here.
What if, instead of recognizing the overlordship (on behalf of the Eastern Emperor) of Odoacer and Theodoric in Italy, after Nepos' death the Eastern Emperor simply appointed an official on Constantinople as co-Emperor with authority over the western half of the Emperor?
There were many co-Emperors in East Roman and Byzantine history. And this version would have no authority in the Eastern Empire, but would be a claim that the East Romans saw the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West as temporary, and had a Western Emperor ready to go if they ever re-asserted their authority over the lost provinces.
What if, instead of recognizing the overlordship (on behalf of the Eastern Emperor) of Odoacer and Theodoric in Italy, after Nepos' death the Eastern Emperor simply appointed an official on Constantinople as co-Emperor with authority over the western half of the Emperor?
There were many co-Emperors in East Roman and Byzantine history. And this version would have no authority in the Eastern Empire, but would be a claim that the East Romans saw the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West as temporary, and had a Western Emperor ready to go if they ever re-asserted their authority over the lost provinces.
What would be the point?
Constantinople knew that, at this point, imperial authority in western Romania was moot and that the policy to support its "own" emperors in Ravenna was unsuccessful and only added to the general disorder. Acknowledging Barbarian authority (if not reinforcing it, as in 497 when imperial regalia were trusted to Theodoric) was eventually acknowledging a de facto situation as it existed since decades without any other real alternative (safe a conquest as Justinian did, which proved to be significantly destructurating).
Eventually, having a co-emperor running around in eastern Romania only provides Constantinople with a possible claimant and rival for the purple, as it happened since the system of collegial imperium was affirmed in the IIIrd century. It's doubtful that, giving the extreme sacrality of the imperial figure (which was a concious policy from emperors and it continued to be so in Byzantium) that even a ceremonial emperor would be a "simple official" : rather, you'd end up with a significant figure being trusted with the function and having nowhere to turn...well, being already sacralized as emperor, they already are legitimized. Prepare for even more co-emperor rivalities as IOTL, and much earlier.
Furthermore, by stressing the permanance of an imperial court they won't control in any way in the West, they'd only invite Barbarians to proclaim a random patrician in Italy as emperor, instead of acknowledging Constantinople's suzerainty. Which would probably gain Roman nobles over in Italy, giving the legitimacy of western court (with all it means in matter of imperial benefices, social or else) would be stressed by another roman emperor but one that would be unable to press the choice in any meaningful way.
Granted, it won't hurt much Eastern Romania as such, but it would significantly limit its diplomatical capacities in the West.
I think you're focusing way too much over the essentially historiographical division between West and East, in matter of authority. Rather than a division of the imperium that should be maintained no matter what, it was rather seen as a shared authority on two courts (sometimes more, but that's arguably more a IVth century thing). As Ravenna's court was out, and when Julius met his illustrious predecessors, without the need to maintain the fiction of the WRE, the imperium naturally went to Constantinople (as it used to do, safe that giving you still had a token Roman authority in Italy, it usually was sent back in the form of yet another emperor claimant as Anasthasius or Nepos).