History of the Roman Empire
Theodosius was the last Emperor who ruled over the whole Empire. After his death in 395, he gave the two halves of the Empire to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius; Arcadius became ruler in the East, with his capital in Constantinople, and Honorius became ruler in the West, with his capital in Milan and later Ravenna. The Roman state would continue to have two different emperors with different seats of power throughout the 5th century, though the Eastern Romans considered themselves to be the only ones who were fully Roman. Latin was used in official writings as much as, if not more than, Greek and the two halves were nominally, culturally and historically, if not politically, the same state.
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.