according to Ennodius, was meanly born, and only a private man in the guards of the emperor Augustulus, when (A.D. 476, under the consulship of Bafileus and Armatus) the barbarians chose him for their leader. The barbarians thought, as they often defended Italy, they had a right at least to part of it; but upon demanding it they were refused, and the consequence was a revolt. Odoacer is said to have been a man of uncommon parts, capable alike of commanding an army or governing a state. Having left his own country when he was very young, to serve in Italy, as he was of a stature remarkably tall, he was admitted among the emperor's guards, and continued in that station till the above year; when, putting himself at the head of the barbarians in the Roman pay, who, though of different nations, had unanimously chosen him for their leader, he marched against Orestes, and his son Augustulus, who still refused to share any of the lands in Italy. The Romans were inferior both in numbers and valour, and were easily conquered: Orestes was ordered to be slain; but the emperor Augustulus was spared, and, though stripped of his dignity, was treated with humanity, and allowed a liberal sum for his own support and for that of his relations. Odoacer was proclaimed king of Italy; but assumed neither the purple nor any other mark of imperial consequence. He was afterwards defeated and slain by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. See Ostrogoth.