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Message:: [QUOTE="dltsrq, post: 7939638, member: 75482"]The Byzantine emperors and the citizens thought of themselves as "Roman". The idea of a separate "Byzantine" empire first appeared in the 16th century. The Turks of the middle ages referred to Anatolia as "Rum" ("Rome") and the Christian population as "Romans". In 476, the Roman general Odoacer (of Germanic background) deposed the young Romulus under the pretense that a separate western emperor was unnecessary and kindly offered to look after the west himself - in the name of the sole emperor Zeno, of course. He received the support of the Senate and was granted the title 'Patrician' by Zeno. Not so much a fall but a bloodless coup. The young Romulus had himself been a usurper, placed on the western throne by his father, the general Orestes. By 476, Rome itself had not been the capital of the empire in nearly a century and a half. In fact, it wasn't even the most important city in Italy. Although 476 marks the point at which the west began to drift away, the Roman Empire continued to exist as a polity for another millennium.[/QUOTE]