History of Europe
In 395 Theodosius I, who had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, would be the last emperor to preside over a united Roman Empire. The empire was split into two halves: the Western Roman Empire centred in Ravenna, and the Eastern Roman Empire (later to be referred to as the Byzantine Empire) centred in Constantinople. The Roman Empire was repeatedly attacked by Hunnic, Germanic, Slavic and other “barbarian” tribes (see: Migration Period), and in 476 finally the Western part fell to the Heruli chieftain Odoacer.
Ostrogothic Ravenna
In 476 the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, was forced to abdicate under invasions by Goths led by Odovacar. Upon the sacking of Rome by these Goths, Odovacar declared himself King of Italy and was able to conquer the peninsula as well as much of the "Dalmatian coast". Odovacar drew the ire of the imperial court at Constantinople as "a barbarian, a non-Roman, had deposed the Roman emperor in the original heartland of the empire. He had taken on the hated royal title and was getting ready to rule in the emperor’s place..." Odovacar, however, issued his coinage in the name of the emperor Nepos, whom Constantinople had never removed its recognition of when Romulus had assumed the imperial title therefore painting himself as merely overthrowing a previous usurper to the imperial throne.