September 4: Today is the anniversary of the capture of Rome by the barbarian king Odoacer who deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476, and ending the Western Roman Empire.

Odoacer invaded Rome and immediately was proclaimed "King of Italy".

Fall of Rome: Barbarians at the gate by Severino Baraldi.  

September 4, 476 is also important because traditional historians agreed to this date as the year of break between antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Europe.

The Fall of the Roman Empire in the West.

As a matter of fact, the period between the fall of Rome in 476 and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, marks what is known as the Middle Ages, also called the European "obscurantism" era because all the writings that were not Christian were to burned.

Rome invaded by the Barbarians. Illustration for Storia de Costume dei Popoli by Paolo Lorenzini (Nerbini,1934).

Odoacro sent Romulus Augustulus into exile on the island of Megarides, near Naples, with his relatives. Odoacer, King of the Heruli became the King of Italy: rex Italiae.

Sack of Rome and Fall of the Western Roman Empire 100-500 CE: Common Era, or After Dei.

“The Roman Empire was not only a political unity enforced by violence. It was also the combined and elaborated civilization of the Mediterranean basin and beyond. It included manufacture, trade, and architecture, widespread secular literacy, written law, and an international language of science and literature.” Halsall 2007, p. 287.