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
The Fall of the American Empire (), Arcand announced in March that the film would be retitled "The Fall of the American Empire" to better reflect how the story developed. The new title was reminiscent of his 1986 "The Decline of the American Empire". Arcand said a theme would be how corruption can spread from the United States to Canada, which he said relies on "Pax Americana", a theme explored in "The Decline of the American Empire" and "The Barbarian Invasions" (2003). In his view, the U.S. had long been suffering and Quebec was affected. He analogized the current situation with the presidency of Donald Trump