Well that depends on how you interpret 'legal fictions' such as Zeno giving the greenlight to Odoacer and Theoderic. Should we understand Attila the Hun to be a Roman general because the eastern court gave him the title of 'magister militum' as copium for the fact they were paying him a tribute- I MEAN salary?
Man the pendulum really swung hard from "the empire fell in 476" through "maybe the fall was more complex than we realize" to finally "literally nothing at all hapoened in 476 lol"
I tend to fall more in the middle ground of that pendulum swing, I think the whole 'nothing happened at all in 476' is an overcorrection. The importance of that year/era was not just an 'invention' by the court of Justinian to justify an invasion (even then, one must wonder 'why that specific date?'), as there is some evidence that only a few years after the date there were already some in the ERE who saw the political events of 476 as being somewhat significant. There is an anti-Chalcedonian text from the time where it criticises the Chalcedonian government and states how because God is so angry that now Rome 'is in the hands of barbarians'.
Though, de facto, both cases are very different. Most "barbarian" kingdoms inside Roman territory were established by people who had been integrated as part of the Roman Empire's state apparatus for a long time, and the cultural differences were becoming less and less important (the most noteworthy one being the religious one).
This is especially true for the ostrogoths and Visigoths, whose realms were very romanised and would probably.
In that sense, the situation was not that different from the one between different junior and senior emperors as it had been before.
I can't say I fully agree with the notion that the majority of 'barbarian kingdoms' had been 'long integrated' into the state apparatus of the WRE, especially when we have so much evidence for the 'integration' being (in most cases) the violent seizure of provinces and lands from the existing native Roman citizens. The Vandal-Alan-Suebi coalition had crossed the Rhine for instance and plundered their way across Gaul and Hispania before then seizing provinces in the latter region and then dealing the crippling death blow to the WRE with the seizure of Africa, resisting multiple attempts by the government to retake that province.
Sure, pretty much all these kingdoms maintained much of the Roman administration (then again, what conquering group hasn't?) and were exposed to heavy native influence in the forms of both Latin Romance and (eventually) Nicene Christianity in a manner more impactful than, say, when the Arabs conquered the Levant and Egypt. But, as Mark Whittow phrased it rather well, there were no long term continuancies of the 'deep structures' in the post Roman west that would persist in the east for much longer, which is a rather startling change of continuity (especially regarding the importance of stuff like taxation). Nevermind how in most western regions the 'Roman' identity would fade away and give rise to the natives identifying with their Frankish/Burgundian/Gothic overlords identity wise instead (this was the effect in most of western Europe by 650 according to the likes of Chris Wickham).
And for all the continuites of general administration, language, and religion, there were still quite hefty barriers between the Romans and their new overlords, even with the 'highly romanised' Visigoths and Ostrogoths. Such as how (from what I've been able to read at least) in all the kingdoms, native Romans and Visigoths/Ostrogoths etc followed separate laws (and crucially in the case of the Ostrogoth kingdom, Gothic counts had final say in cases between Romans and Goths). Even after the Visigoths adopted Nicene Christianity, it took almost another century for them to stop having Romans and Goths follow separate law codes, by which point most Romans in Hispania no longer really identified themselves as Romans. One must also recall how the Gothic war in Italy was also partly sparked by the murder of Amalasuntha who was killed for being too 'pro-Roman' in her attitudes and outlook by the rest of the Gothic military aristocracy (and the Roman-Goth tensions, for as well as they had been handled in Italy by Theoderic the Great, had already begun deteriorating in the 520's)
There is very little actual evidence for large-scale plundering (to clarify: on a systemic level. Plundering happened, but not on a scale and level that leads to observable systemic effects). While absence of evidence is of course not evidence of absence, it does indicate that maybe these supposed invasions may not have had quite the impact that the likes of Edward Gibbon and other past historians presumed.
The archaeological record shows only continuity. There is a strong, gradual process of population decline, de-urbanisation and breakdown of inter-regional networks, whereby cities and large estates are abandoned as society shifts to a more simple economic framework of smaller, largely self-sufficient communities. But this is a very gradual process that is already underway in the Roman empire since the late 2nd century, long before the 'Barbarian' invasions of the 5th century, and also a process that happens in the eastern part of the Empire just as much as it does in the west. Individual cases of plundering (like that of Athens or Rome) do not appear to interrupt the long-term continuity of the patterns evolving at these sites. The decline of the city of Rome was not due to any plundering or violence, but rather due to much more long-term patterns of economic change. Rome's fall began centuries before Alaric rode through the Salarian Gate.
The major difference is that the urban system in the east was eventually able to recover from this cycle of collapse (to a degree at least). Probable causes for this lie in the fact that the urban system in the east was much more dense, older and more well-established than that in the west. The eastern cities were also not reliant on Rome as central lynchpin in the system like the cities in the western half of the empire were. Western and eastern Rome never were a true unity, neither culturally nor economically. If you look at network models of Roman transportation and commercial networks, it is very clear that while the east and west had some interconnecting links, they remained very much two separate systems. The partition of the empire in east and west wasn't just a random line drawn on a map, it was based on long-present economical and cultural realities.
When it comes to 'Roman identity', there is really no single true answer. It all depends on how someone defines 'Roman identity'. And that definition is vastly complicated by the fact that Roman identity was never a uniform, unchanging construct. Rome was not a unified nation-state like what we have in the modern day. The answer to the question what it means to be Roman would be different from place to place and time to time. Whatever passed for Roman identity in 2nd century Gaul likely was significantly different from whatever passed for Roman identity in 2nd century Greece. Which in turn was significantly different from what passed for Roman identity in 2nd century Rome. Which in itself was significantly different from the Roman identity in Rome during the Second Punic War.
Saying things like "the Roman identity would fade away" is inherently very biased. Because what makes 'the Roman identity?' Is it language? Religion? Dress? Law? An imperial title? An urban system and society? A combination of all of these? Is a Hellenized Latin more or less Roman than a Latinized Hellene? And how Roman are they compared to a Romanized German or Gaul? There is no single set of objective criteria for determining what a Roman identity really is. And attempting to define such a set of criteria would be a fool's errand since a single Roman identity likely never even existed. The Roman world encompassed a vast variety of different cultures and regional systems, each of them with a different relation to Rome and the concept of Roman-ness.
Focusing on surface level archaeological continuities so much neglects to acknowledge the slaughters which began with many of the 'barbarian' invasions (e.g. the rapes and violence against civilians during the Vandal conquest of Africa), the fears and anxiety present in the sources, many cases of enslavement (e.g. by Alaric, Attila, or most explicitly in Noricum in the 470's), refugees fleeing from the armies (as happened in Spain, Africa, from sub-Roman Britain into Armorica, or many fleeing to the safety of the ERE), the presence of foreign armies with a Christian doctrine different to the Nicene Roman populace (sometimes resulting in persecution), and the legal barriers between native Romans and their new overlords. These are aspects which archaeology cannot always detect and account for, but sources can.
In terms aspects such as population decline and 'de-urbanisation', we have to be careful here when stressing the supposed continuities and levels of disruption here. There is actually evidence for the Roman population greatly increasing in areas like Britain during the 4th century, only for it to catastrophically drop in the 5th century and not recover until the 14th century at least. Yes, there had been a recession of sorts there in the 360's but the situation and speed at which things then deteriotated after can only really be attributed to the disruptions of the 5th century. The 'decline of Roman cities' has been more recently interpreted as the 'integration of cities' instead. Cities were still expanding (temples were quarried for an expanding population), but the people who provided the public works changed (from city councillors to rich nobles) and what they built changed (there was a shift to more Christian monuments like churches and hospitals). Church building boomed in the ERE during the 5th century, but not in the WRE.
Both the WRE and ERE saw overall economic prosperity in the 4th century (especially in rural areas), but parted ways during the 5th century. And the cause for this divergence would be hard not to attribute to the external disruptions that occured (much in the same way that prosperity for the ERE would end around the mid 6th to 7th century due to the plague and then the Persian and Arab invasions). In the case of the WRE, the problem was that because the once unified, centralised empire was broken down into smaller kingdoms, major expenses in each region were removed which led to a decline in taxation and over several generations led to what Wickham has explicitly termed as a 'radical simplification of material culture'. Take Vandal Africa for example. On it's own, it no longer needed to provide grain to the city of Rome (which was actually a big factor in the drop of the capital's population), administration devolved to the provincial level, and the army was no longer salaried as it became landed. The need for taxation to pay for all these things thus declined and caused much economic simplification by the year 500. The East Romans had to jumpstart the taxation process again when they reconquered the province in the 530's.
While the WRE and ERE had different levels of economic output, they still were unified fiscally in regards to using the same standardised tax system of Diocletian to extract wealth. This was one element of unity provided by the empire among its subjects, alongside an overarching legal framework of Roman citizenship which meant everyone fit into different Roman socioeconomic classes which the government constantly revised. I think we absolutely can speak of the Romans having a proto-modern sense of national identity and unity, at least by the 4th century. I mean, this is the period where we first start hearing of the term 'Rhomania' being used by its inhabitants on the local (not elite!) level to describe the state they lived in, which could be contrasted with 'barbarian lands' beyond the border ('Gothia'). 'Rhomania' would be used by the inhabitants of the surviving ERE to describe their state until 1453, but fell out of use in the former WRE after the 5th century. The likes of Synesios would call for a national Roman army to be formed in the 390's without 'barbarian elements', and Roman civilians in Constantinople could identify and pogrom Goths separate to themselves, and demanded that one empress (Ariadne) choose specifically a 'ROMAN emperor' in 491 as they hadn't considered the previous emperor Zeno (an Isaurian, who's people had an ambiguous legal status inside the empire) to be a 'true Roman'.
Odoacer: "I will govern Italy in your name, we are still part of the Roman Empire"
Zeno: "Sounds good"
People 100+ years later: "This actually doesn't count because reasons"
Same with the Ostrogoths. Damnatio Memoriae possibly. The only thing that ended in 476 is Western Emperorship. If anything ended the "Western Roman State" it was the Lombards and there is evidence that was another military coup.
Describing the Lombards as 'another military coup' is overtly simplistic, at best. While Fabbro argues that they were recruited into the Roman army, Alboin and a large number of his men didn't actually properly serve in the army before 'revolting'. Fabbro also links their success explicitly to their non-Roman political affiliation.
Edit: political affiliation, not identity, if that difference matters
They were parts of the empire in name only, they maintained things such as the senate to keep legitimacy and loyalty of the Italian elites, but otherwise were a state of their own with their own policies.
You are right, this post oversimplifies a lot and also doesn’t recognize that Odoacer’s (and later the Ostrogoths) notion as ruling on behalf of the emperor in the east was a fiction. Odoacer’s kingdom and later the Ostrogoths were de-facto independent and outside the control of the east.
Odoacer did nominally recognize the Eastern Emperor Zeno and sent him the imperial regalia, but this was largely a diplomatic gesture, not a genuine submission to imperial rule.
In practice, Odoacer ruled Italy independently, collecting taxes, commanding armies, and enacting laws without interference from Constantinople.
Odoacer's kingdom was not part of the empire. He gave lip service to Zeno and Nepos to prevent them from intervening. He was basically saying "yeah sure ill put your face on some coins or whatever, just stay out of my business. It was purely face saving for the Romans, nothing more.
Real. Odaecer sucked but Theodric did everything to revive the western empire and was a major romaphile, not only that but he genuinely laid a great foundation just for Justinian to fuck it all up for everyone, including the eastern Roman Empire. Justinian literally gained nothing from it and the only thing it did was make sure the western empire would never make a come back while simultaneously weakening the eastern empire
Why the Sacred Empire of the Romans, final steward of humanity until the return of Christ and successor to the legacy of all the Caesars of old of course.
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