What is the absolute latest time to save (at least part of) the Western Roman Empire?

Thanks for bumping this thread. I agree that re-taking North Africa was key -it was amazing this wasn't tried more often than it was- but I also agree with the comments of "scholar".

Note that Consuls were still being elected in Rome until well into the sixth century, and the last date we hear of the Roman Senate is 603.

Couldn't Odoacer have recognized Nepos on condition of the latter not showing up in Italy, and later set up his own puppet Emperor? There was no reason why they couldn't have kept puppet Emperors around in Italy for awhile longer. This could have meant no East Roman attempt at conquest.

Why couldn't one of the German kings have been made Emperor? After all, the East Romans had this guy in charge at Constantinople in 475-6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_(emperor)#cite_note-Tarasis-1

I don't know what the barrier was to having a Gothic or Burgundian Emperor in the West.
 
Thanks for bumping this thread. I agree that re-taking North Africa was key -it was amazing this wasn't tried more often than it was- but I also agree with the comments of "scholar".

Note that Consuls were still being elected in Rome until well into the sixth century, and the last date we hear of the Roman Senate is 603.

Couldn't Odoacer have recognized Nepos on condition of the latter not showing up in Italy, and later set up his own puppet Emperor? There was no reason why they couldn't have kept puppet Emperors around in Italy for awhile longer. This could have meant no East Roman attempt at conquest.

Why couldn't one of the German kings have been made Emperor? After all, the East Romans had this guy in charge at Constantinople in 475-6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_(emperor)#cite_note-Tarasis-1

I don't know what the barrier was to having a Gothic or Burgundian Emperor in the West.

I think you might be missing a few pieces in the puzzle.

Odoacer did recognize Nepos and the whole not show up in Italy was the unspoken arrangement between the two men after Romulus Augustus was dethroned.

Puppet emperors are only as useful as their shelf life and even then only if they stay in their place. Emperors, with good reason, were often conflicted by their positions of honorary first fiddle and should the Emperor decide that he's in charge he just might be. Valentinian killed Flavius Aetius in cold blood, gruesomely, all because he felt sidelined and irrelevant in the presence of his subordinate. To have a successful Patriciate Western Empire you have to stifle that latent ability of any puppet to offset your informal position as the strongman of the West. Stillcho managed this by taking up the mantle of the late Emperor Theodosius, and even with that Honorius remained powerful enough to destroy him and his family with a word.

The Magister Militum, no matter how de-facto powerful it was, deferred to the Emperor for his authority because no matter the situation power always came back to the throne. Internal politics notwithstanding, the only way for a successful Patricius to be successful is to have the Emperor go along with it. Setting up your own Emperor doesn't fix that problem because people are people, doesn't matter how much of what any particular Emperor is because of their Magister if they can get more through removing them. I'm saying all this to stress just how delicate a position Odoacer was in.

As to him setting up a puppet emperor, that only works when the East is too broke, too exhausted, or too busy to butt their heads into Western politics. You can make any petty noble Emperor in the West but if Constantinople didn't go along with it you'd very likely find yourself on the chopping block. The East played with swords more than daggers and far be it from any Eastern Emperor to just take some uppity usurper as an equal.
Not to mention that Odoacer also tried this OTL, (not sure how it would have worked out given that he was losing a war against the Ostrogoths)
when he made his son Caesar. Sure he was desperate at the point, but the pretense of Imperial power was still vital to any ability of Odoacer to govern and if the pretense was further weakened through an absentee Emperorship as per OTL or an even worse revolving door of candidates then the West just becomes dead as an idea.

Why a German couldn't be made Emperor is a question that mostly falls on what one could and could not get away with. Like I said earlier, the East had a very short temper when it came to the West if things didn't go their way. Having someone who wasn't even Roman sitting on the throne may as well have rendered the throne of the West vacant. No one in the East was going to suffer or acknowledge that sort of brazen posturing from a barbarian and the fallout from that would have tanked that particular pretender squarely into the grave. This unspoken line in the sand is the primary reason for the adoption of the Patricius title by Ricimer, Gundobad and Odoacer. It was close enough to the real thing that any ambitions were satisfied and far enough that anyone with a sense of realpolitik would just let it slide.

Also, Zeno and the Isaurians are a special case mostly because they were natives to the Empire, citizens surely and they certainly weren't pillaging the country like the Germans or Huns were. It's the difference between a Comanche and a Cherokee. I think if you had a Cherokee as President at any point in our history it'd piss off a majority of people, but you couldn't really say he wasn't American (If he was sufficiently naturalized). But a Comanche is nothing more than a savage case closed, you can deal with one and you can't with the other. One knows your language and your customs the other one wants to take your scalp. The hatred toward the Isaurians was a softer sort of bigotry than the outright hate and fear anyone had for Goths or Huns (and for good reason, honestly). It's like comparing a guy from backwoods West Virginia to an actual foreigner.
 
A significant problem is that downsizing the empire onto more compact defensible borders and the necessary restructuring of economies and supply chains wouldn't be acceptable. Conceivably, a far sighted emperor could build up powerful fortifications along the Italian alps, and sufficiently protect Italy as the seat of the empire. But in effect it's likely impossible because no one could reasonably justify losing that much territory. Then again though, the Byzantines managed to do roughly the same idea with Anatolia and Greece. Even as the rest of the eastern empire was lost. That's also just unambitious it might work.
 
I think you might be missing a few pieces in the puzzle.

Odoacer did recognize Nepos and the whole not show up in Italy was the unspoken arrangement between the two men after Romulus Augustus was dethroned.

Puppet emperors are only as useful as their shelf life and even then only if they stay in their place. Emperors, with good reason, were often conflicted by their positions of honorary first fiddle and should the Emperor decide that he's in charge he just might be. Valentinian killed Flavius Aetius in cold blood, gruesomely, all because he felt sidelined and irrelevant in the presence of his subordinate. To have a successful Patriciate Western Empire you have to stifle that latent ability of any puppet to offset your informal position as the strongman of the West. Stillcho managed this by taking up the mantle of the late Emperor Theodosius, and even with that Honorius remained powerful enough to destroy him and his family with a word.

The Magister Militum, no matter how de-facto powerful it was, deferred to the Emperor for his authority because no matter the situation power always came back to the throne. Internal politics notwithstanding, the only way for a successful Patricius to be successful is to have the Emperor go along with it. Setting up your own Emperor doesn't fix that problem because people are people, doesn't matter how much of what any particular Emperor is because of their Magister if they can get more through removing them. I'm saying all this to stress just how delicate a position Odoacer was in.

As to him setting up a puppet emperor, that only works when the East is too broke, too exhausted, or too busy to butt their heads into Western politics. You can make any petty noble Emperor in the West but if Constantinople didn't go along with it you'd very likely find yourself on the chopping block. The East played with swords more than daggers and far be it from any Eastern Emperor to just take some uppity usurper as an equal.
Not to mention that Odoacer also tried this OTL, (not sure how it would have worked out given that he was losing a war against the Ostrogoths)
when he made his son Caesar. Sure he was desperate at the point, but the pretense of Imperial power was still vital to any ability of Odoacer to govern and if the pretense was further weakened through an absentee Emperorship as per OTL or an even worse revolving door of candidates then the West just becomes dead as an idea.

Why a German couldn't be made Emperor is a question that mostly falls on what one could and could not get away with. Like I said earlier, the East had a very short temper when it came to the West if things didn't go their way. Having someone who wasn't even Roman sitting on the throne may as well have rendered the throne of the West vacant. No one in the East was going to suffer or acknowledge that sort of brazen posturing from a barbarian and the fallout from that would have tanked that particular pretender squarely into the grave. This unspoken line in the sand is the primary reason for the adoption of the Patricius title by Ricimer, Gundobad and Odoacer. It was close enough to the real thing that any ambitions were satisfied and far enough that anyone with a sense of realpolitik would just let it slide.

Also, Zeno and the Isaurians are a special case mostly because they were natives to the Empire, citizens surely and they certainly weren't pillaging the country like the Germans or Huns were. It's the difference between a Comanche and a Cherokee. I think if you had a Cherokee as President at any point in our history it'd piss off a majority of people, but you couldn't really say he wasn't American (If he was sufficiently naturalized). But a Comanche is nothing more than a savage case closed, you can deal with one and you can't with the other. One knows your language and your customs the other one wants to take your scalp. The hatred toward the Isaurians was a softer sort of bigotry than the outright hate and fear anyone had for Goths or Huns (and for good reason, honestly). It's like comparing a guy from backwoods West Virginia to an actual foreigner.

I have a question:how come the East is alright with Barbarians ruling Rome and Italy,but actually goes berserk when they set up a puppet emperor?
 
I have a question:how come the East is alright with Barbarians ruling Rome and Italy,but actually goes berserk when they set up a puppet emperor?

Because the western emperor is the equal of the eastern emperor. A puppet is still an emperor, and for the eastern empire it also effectively undermines any claim to the west.
 
Odovacer was officially a vassal of the eastern emperor. That's no longer the case when he appoints his own emperor.

It's not like the ERE will attack Odoacer if he declared himself an independent king either does it?In the end,they had to get proxies to do it.My point is that the ERE seems to have no problem with people in the west killing their colleagues,deposing them,have them rendered as puppets or actually having what's left of the WRE conquered,but as soon as one of the barbarians declares themselves emperor,they just flip.My point is that their priority's completely fucked up.
Because the western emperor is the equal of the eastern emperor. A puppet is still an emperor, and for the eastern empire it also effectively undermines any claim to the west.

If they cared so much about claims to the west,why didn't they just go into the WRE and annex what's left of it?It's weird that they would try and conquer Italy if a barbarian claimed to be emperor but won't do so if they didn't claim to be emperor.
 
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