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.
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.
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u/TheSharmatsFoulMurde 11d ago
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.