AD 476

Julius Nepos

The Roman Senate asks Zeno to recognize Odoacer’s government in Italy

In the surviving fragment of Malchus, two embassies reach Zeno on the same day: one asks him to recognise Odoacer, the other asks him for an army to overthrow Odoacer.

Two delegations, one audience

According to the surviving fragment of Malchus, an embassy from the Roman Senate reached Zeno at Constantinople in 476 and declared that the western territories no longer required a separate emperor, because one common emperor would suffice. In Malchus's account the senators described Odoacer as capable of protecting their affairs and asked Zeno to confer the patriciate on him and entrust him with the government of Italy.

Envoys from the exiled Julius Nepos arrived, the same fragment reports, on the same day. They congratulated Zeno on his restoration and requested money and an army to put Nepos back in Italy.

Zeno’s answer, and Zeno’s letter

Zeno, in Malchus's telling, rebuked the Senate for killing Anthemius and expelling Nepos, insisted that it should receive Nepos back, and said Odoacer should properly obtain the patriciate from Nepos.

He then sent Odoacer an imperial letter addressing him as patricius. Scholars disagree whether that amounted to a formal grant, an honorific mode of address, or recognition conditional on Nepos.

An arrangement left unresolved

The western imperial ornaments were transferred to Constantinople; the Anonymus Valesianus later records their return to Italy under Emperor Anastasius. Italy stayed under Odoacer’s effective rule while the formal relationship among Odoacer, Nepos and Zeno remained unsettled.

Malchus's history survives only as fragments transmitted through later excerptors, so the wording and the agency in that exchange are his rather than a transcript. The embassy is commonly placed in autumn 476, after Zeno recovered Constantinople in August, but no exact day survives and some reconstructions put related diplomacy in 477.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes, 1 issue open Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The narrative survives as a fragment of Malchus transmitted through later excerptors rather than as Malchus’s complete history.
The embassy is commonly placed in autumn 476, after Zeno recovered Constantinople in August, but no exact day survives and some reconstructions place related diplomacy in 477.
Scholars disagree whether Zeno’s use of patricius constituted a formal grant, an honorific mode of address, or recognition conditional on Nepos.
The precise relationship among Romulus’s resignation, the Senate’s embassy, and the transfer of the imperial ornaments is difficult to reconstruct from the fragmentary sources.