Peter Heather

They're making their best guess and acting on it.

Yes, absolutely.

Yes, we've had renegades from... Because Attila's empire's been and gone.

He dies in 453, and his empire breaks up, well, in a succession dispute between his sons, which gives everybody the chance to clear off because they don't want to be part of the Hunnic Empire.

Quite a few of them have ended up in Italy, including a man called Odoacer, who is a senior general.

But the tax revenues are not there to support that army anymore, and it revolts.

And it revolts over a lack of pay, which is not surprising.

We've got to find a different way of paying it.

There's no more money in the Roman treasury?

No, there is not.

He does, yes.

And crowns himself?

He calls himself king, but doesn't say what he's king of.

And what's...

brilliant about him is he sends a senatorial embassy to Constantinople sending back the imperial regalia, whatever they were, and saying there's no need for more than one Roman emperor anymore.

So he doesn't define...

what the new situation is.

How odd.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's a bit like the breakup of the Soviet Union with the emergence of those republics.