Odoacer

Odoacer was a military commander who deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476 and ruled Italy as king while formally acknowledging the eastern emperor. He preserved much of the Roman administration but was eventually defeated and killed by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric.

In Gary Jennings’s Raptor, Campaigns at the end of the fifth century lead to the siege of Ravenna and Theodoric’s killing of Odoacer in 493. In Michael Curtis Ford’s The Fall of Rome, when Orestes refuses, the soldiers rally behind Odoacer and turn against the regime at Ravenna. Other novels featuring Odoacer include Ross Laidlaw’s Theoderic and Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s The Last Legion.