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In the A.D. 5th century," Rome was sacked twice: first by the Goths in 410 and then the Vandals in 455. The final blow came in 476, when the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, was forced to abdicate and the Germanic general Odoacer took control of the city. Italy eventually became a Germanic Ostrogoth kingdom. The historian Adrian Goldsworthy wrote that the barbarian invaders “struck at a body made vulnerable by prolonged decay."
Dr Peter Heather of Oxford University wrote for the BBC: In September 476 AD, the last Roman emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by a Germanic prince called Odovacar, who had won control of the remnants of the Roman army of Italy. He then sent the western imperial regalia to Constantinople. The Roman empire in western Europe - a centralised superstate which had been in existence for 500 years - had ceased to exist, its single emperor replaced by upwards of a dozen kings and princes. “The vast majority of these rulers, like Odovacar himself , were non-Roman in origin.
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