Romulus Augustulus
Flavius Romulus Augustus (c. AD 460 – after AD 476; possibly still alive as late as AD 507), known derisively and historiographically as Romulus Augustulus, was the Roman emperor who ruled the Western Roman Empire from 31 October 475 until 4 September 476. He is often described as the "last Western Roman emperor", though some historians consider this to be Julius Nepos. His deposition by Odoacer traditionally marks the end of the Roman Empire in the West, the end of Ancient Rome, and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Western Europe.
Imperial cult of ancient Rome
Constantine's nephew Julian, Rome's last non-Christian emperor, rejected the "Galilean madness" of his upbringing for a synthesis of neo-Platonism, Stoic asceticism and universal solar cult and actively fostered religious and cultural pluralism. His restored Augustan form of principate, with himself as "primus inter pares", ended with his death in 363, after which his reforms were reversed or abandoned. The Western emperor Gratian refused the office of "pontifex maximus" and, against the protests of the Senate, removed the altar of "Victoria" (Victory) from the Senate House and began the disestablishment of the Vestals. Theodosius I briefly re-united the Western and Eastern halves of the Empire, officially adopted Nicene Christianity as the Imperial religion and ended official support for all other creeds and cults. He refused to restore "Victoria" to the Senate House, extinguished Vesta's sacred fire and vacated her temple. Even so, he accepted address as a living divinity, comparable to Hercules and Jupiter, by his overwhelmingly pagan Senate. After his death the sundered Eastern and Western halves of Empire followed increasingly divergent paths: nevertheless both were Roman and both had emperors. Imperial ceremonial – notably the Imperial "adventus" or ceremony of arrival, which derived in greater part from the Triumph – was embedded within Roman culture, Church ceremony and the Gospels themselves.