who was the first ruler of the western roman empire
Western Roman Empire The political situation was unstable. In 383, a powerful and popular general named Magnus Maximus seized power in the West and forced Gratian's half-brother Valentinian II to flee to the East for aid; in a destructive civil war, the Eastern Emperor Theodosius I restored him to power. In 392, the Frankish and pagan magister militum Arbogast assassinated Valentinian II and proclaimed an obscure senator named Eugenius as Emperor. In 394 the forces of the two halves of the Empire again clashed with great loss of life. Again Theodosius I won, and he briefly ruled a united Empire until his death in 395. He was the last Emperor to rule both parts of the Roman Empire; his older son Arcadius inherited the eastern half while the younger Honorius got the western half. Both were still minors and neither was capable of ruling effectively. Honorius was placed under the tutelage of the half-Roman/half-barbarian magister militum Flavius Stilicho while Rufinus became the power behind the throne in the east. Rufinus and Stilicho were rivals, and their disagreements were exploited by the Gothic leader Alaric I who again rebelled following the death of Theodosius I. Neither half of the Empire could raise forces sufficient even to subdue Alaric's men, and both tried to use Alaric against the other half. Alaric himself tried to establish a long-term territorial and official base, but was never able to do so.
Tiberius Tiberius (/taɪˈbɪəriəs/; Latin: Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti filius Augustus;[1][2] 16 November 42 BC – 16 March 37 AD) was Roman emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD, succeeding the first emperor, Augustus.
Western Roman Empire Though the Empire had seen periods with more than one Emperor ruling jointly before, the view that it was impossible for a single emperor to govern the entire Empire was established by Emperor Diocletian following the disastrous civil wars and disintegrations of the Crisis of the 3rd century. His ideas were instituted in Roman law by the introduction of the Tetrarchy in AD 286, which divided the position of Augustus (Emperor) into two; one in the East and one in the West, each with an appointed Caesar (junior Emperor and designated successor). Though the tetrarchic system would collapse in a matter of years, the East-West administrative division would endure in one form or another for centuries to come. As such, the Western Roman Empire would exist intermittently in several periods between the 3rd and 5th centuries. Though some emperors, such as Constantine I and Theodosius I, would manage to rise to the position of Augustus in both parts and as such reunify the Empire, it would often divide again upon their deaths. After the death of Theodosius I in AD 395, the Empire was divided between his sons and would not be reunified. Eighty-five years later, in 480, following various invasions and the collapse of central control in the West, Emperor Zeno of the Eastern Empire recognized the reality of the Western Empire's reduced domain. Effective central control had ceased to exist even in the Italian Peninsula after the depositions of Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustulusâ€”and Zeno therefore abolished the Western court and proclaimed himself the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire By convention, the Western Roman Empire is deemed to have ended on 4 September 476, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus and proclaimed himself ruler of Italy, but this convention is subject to many qualifications. In Roman constitutional theory, the Empire was still simply united under one emperor, implying no abandonment of territorial claims. In areas where the convulsions of the dying Empire had made organized self-defence legitimate, rump states continued under some form of Roman rule after 476. Julius Nepos still claimed to be Emperor of the West and controlled Dalmatia until his murder in 480. Syagrius son of Aegidius ruled the Domain of Soissons until his murder in 487.[214] The indigenous inhabitants of Mauretania developed kingdoms of their own, independent of the Vandals, with strong Roman traits. They again sought Imperial recognition with the reconquests of Justinian I, and they put up effective resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb.[215] While the civitates of Britannia sank into a level of material development inferior even to their pre-Roman Iron Age ancestors,[216] they maintained identifiably Roman traits for some time, and they continued to look to their own defence as Honorius had authorized.[217][218]