Italy in the Middle Ages ||This article relies largely or
entirely upon a single source. (November 2012)| ||This article
may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. (June
2007)| |Part of a series on the| |History of Italy| Transition
from Late Antiquity (6th to 8th centuries) Italy was invaded by
the Visigoths in the 5th century, and Rome was sacked by Alaric
in 410. The (traditional) last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus
Augustus, was deposed in 476 by an Eastern Germanic general,
Odoacer. He subsequently ruled in Italy for seventeen years as
rex gentium, theoretically under the suzerainty of the Eastern
Roman Emperor Zeno, but practically in total independence. The
administration remained essentially the same as that under the
Western Roman Empire, and gave religious freedoms to the
Christians. Odoacer fought against the Vandals, who had occupied
Sicily, and other Germanic tribes that periodically invaded the
peninsula. In 489, however, Emperor Zeno decided to oust the
Ostrogoths, a foederatum