History of the East–West Schism
Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. The Emperor Diocletian famously divided the administration of the eastern and western portions of the Empire in the early 4th century, though subsequent leaders (including Constantine) aspired to and sometimes gained control of both regions. Theodosius the Great, who established Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire (see Edict of Thessalonica), was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire. Following his death in 395, the division into western and eastern halves, each for a few decades still under its own Emperor, was never reunited.
The Last Legion (novel)
In 476, the Western Roman Empire is under attack by the barbarian armies under the Heruli General Odoacer. Forces loyal to the empire were destroyed and the Emperor Romulus Augustus, a child at the age of 13, was arrested, deposed, and exiled to the island of Capri. Meanwhile, in Dertona, where stands the castrum of the last legion, the "Nova Invicta", the battle rages against the Heruli and Skyrian horsemen. The officer Aurelianus Ambrosius Ventidius, detached from his friends, rides desperately toward the villa of the noble Orestes for help, but the villa was attacked and destroyed by Odoacer's barbarians. Aurelius soon finds Orestes fatally wounded and can only receive the last request of Orestes' dying breath to save and protect Romulus Augustus, his son, the last emperor of Rome.