The Last Legion from the publication of British historian Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the late 18th Century. At the time of his proclamation as Emperor, Romulus Augustus was 16, older than portrayed in the film. Upon being captured by Odoacer, the boy usurper was seen to be a victim of his father. He was spared and sent to live in comfortable retirement in southern Italy. There was a struggle for control of the Eastern Roman Empire at the time but the Emperor alluded to would probably have been Zeno (explicit in the novel). In
Roman Emperors during the Fall of the Western Empire Zeno was temporarily displaced in Constantinople by Verina's brother ("i.e.", Leo I's brother-in-law and Leo II's great uncle-in-law) "Basiliscus", but regained his position as emperor a year later. On his death, Ariadne married the court functionary "Anastasius I", and thereby elevated him to Emperor by virtue of marrying the Empress. Roman Emperors during the Fall of the Western Empire The office of Roman Emperor underwent significant turbulence in the fourth and fifth centuries, particularly under the period of the Dominate. In the West, where the fall of the Western Roman Empire was underway, its holders became puppets of a succession