11 year old Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor or the Western Roman Empire and a mere figurehead, was forced to advocate by Flavius Odoacer, a German commander of the Roman Guard who declared himself King of Italy and a vassal of the Eastern Roman Emperor.
The event is marked as the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages.
Romulus went on to live in exile with a pension and seems to have lived to at least 60 years of age. He was a Catholic (orthodox) Christian and may have founded a monastery while in exile.*
Odoacer, while regarding himself as a vassal of Constantinople, had a falling out with with the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno who in turn sent Theodoric the Great to depose him, resulting in a war which cost Odoacer his life in 493. Theodoric did not stop there, but killed many of Odoacer's followers, including his wife Sunigilda, who was stoned to death, and his brother Onoulphus. In spite of his short reign and violent death, he's regarded as an important post Empire figure. Odoacer was an Arian Chrisitan.
Theodoric, an Ostrogoth, who became king, was a hugely significant figure, expanding his reign over a fair amount of what had been the Western Roman Empire. He was an Arian Christian whose rule mimicked forms adopted from Constantinople. He was King of Italy, the Ostrogoths, and the Visigoths.
Theodoric was a patron of the orthodox Catholic philosopher Boethius for quite some time, but as his rule progressed, Theodoric began to turn from neutral in the dispute between orthodoxy and Arianism and he had Boethius arrested and ultimately executed in 524.
Boethius' magnum opus, De consolatione philosophiae, was written while imprisoned and awaiting execution. He is regarded as a martyr in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
Footnotes:
*This era was marked by a major conflict between orthodox Christianity and Arianism. To clarify things here, the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church was very much in the future so the use of orthodoxy here does not mean to imply the Eastern Orthodox Church.
