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I was not immune, and I would not leave undamaged. To this day, I still hurt. I must have rolled in the beds of wild rose, for the tiny thorns–small, yellow–pierced my skin. Their poison is desire and it dissolved in my blood. The cats made me one of them–sleek and without mercy, avid, falling hungry upon the body. I want to grind men’s bones to drink in my night tea. I want to enter them the way their hot shadows fold into their bodies in full sunlight. I want to be their food, their harmful drink, to taste men like stilled jam at the back of my tongue. [Love Medicine (1984) by Louise Erdrich]

Ito (Joe Taslim) and Arian (Iko Uwais) in The Night Comes for Us (2018) directed by Timo Tjahjanto

#how many gay romances have been tragically spoiled by the pursuit of power.....#the night comes for us #2018 #timo tjahjanto #joe taslim #iko uwais #indonesia #indonesian cinema #action films #ito #arian

Odoacer

Odoacer (433-493 CE, reigned 476-493 CE) also known as Odovacar, Flavius Odoacer, and Flavius Odovacer, was the first king of Italy. His reign marked the end of the Roman Empire; he deposed the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, on 4 September 476 CE. He was a soldier in the Roman army who ascended through the ranks to general and was then chosen to rule after the mercenary general Orestes refused to grant land in Italy to his soldiers, and they proclaimed Odoacer as their leader. The Roman senate approved Odoacer's leadership and awarded him the honorary status of a patrician. He provided his soldiers with the land he had promised, ruled in accordance with the precepts of the Roman Empire, and governed Italy judiciously until he was defeated in battle and then assassinated by Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths (475-526 CE). Although some historians have regarded his reign as uneventful and claim he introduced no innovations, he was successful in maintaining order, culture, and the last vestiges of the civilization of the Roman Empire which, considering the time in which he reigned, was an impressive achievement.

Early Life & Rise to Power

Nothing is clearly known of Odoacer's early life. His ethnicity is generally regarded as Germanic, but who his parents were, how he was raised, or even where, is a matter of debate among historians. It is generally agreed among scholars, however, that he was the son of Edico the Hun, king of the Germanic Sciri tribe, and trusted advisor to Attila. It was Edico, who had been sent by Attila as an ambassador to Rome, who revealed to Attila the Roman plot to assassinate him and so foiled the plan. After Attila's death, and the dissolution of the Hun Empire, Odoacer is thought to have fought for his father before joining the Roman army, ascending through the ranks, and finally assuming power. While it seems clear enough that Odoacer was Edico's son, the problem historians argue over is `Which Edico?' The 6th century writer Jordanes claims that Odoacer's father was Edica of the Sciri tribe but in no way associates him with Edico of the Huns. Much of Jordanes' work has been questioned by modern scholarship, however, and most historians agree that Edico of the Huns was the father of Odoacer. Historian Hyun Jin Kim describes Odoacer as "Edico's famous son" and notes his military skill as comparable to that of the Huns (96). The historian Peter Heather agrees, writing:

What's so exciting about Edeco is that he became king of the Sciri after Attila's death, even though he himself was not one. He probably owed his claim to the throne to having married a high-born Scirian lady, since his children, Odovacar and Onoulphous, are said to have had a Scirian mother. But Edeco himself is dubbed variously a Hun or a Thuringian (228).

Still, there are other historians who dispute these claims and suggest that Edico the Hun was not the father of Odoacer and that his father's name was Edica, of the Sciri tribe, who had nothing to do with Edico. As the majority of scholarship sides with historians such as Hyun and Heather, however, Edico has been identified as Odoacer's father, who was married to a noble woman of the Sciri.

Odoacer first appears in history in a minor role as a soldier called Odovacrius, fighting the Visigoths in 463 CE. He is also mentioned in the Life of Saint Severinus by Eugippius (5th century CE), where it is stated that he, with a band of followers, stopped by the saint's home to ask his blessing, and Severinus prophesied to Odoacer, "Go on to Italy - though now covered in mean hides, soon you will make rich gifts to many". While this prophecy proved to be true, it is unclear whether Eugippius wrote this anecdote before or after Odoacer had come to power. The story may be a later insertion into the life of the saint, written to lend him the gift of prophecy.

However that may be, by the year 470 CE Odoacer was an officer in the dwindling Roman army stationed in Italy. Julius Nepos (430-480 CE) had been appointed emperor of the west by the eastern Byzantine emperor Leo I (401-474 CE). Nepos appointed a general named Orestes as head of the army against the wishes and advice of the Roman senate. The senate did not trust Orestes because he was not of patrician stock and had fought for the armies of Attila against Rome. He was also, they felt, far too popular with the troops he had come to lead. The historian Gibbon writes:

These troops had been long accustomed to reverence the character and authority of Orestes, who affected their manners, conversed with them in their own language, and was intimately connected with their national chieftains by long habits of familiarity and friendship (547).

As soon as Orestes was elevated to commander-in-chief of the army in 475 CE, he marched them against Nepos who fled into exile. The troops then encouraged Orestes to declare himself emperor, but he declined and instead had his teenage son Romulus Augustulus (c. 460-500 CE) declared emperor. For their service to Orestes in deposing Nepos, and to augment the back pay they felt they deserved, the soldiers requested that a third of the lands of Italy should be given to them as homesteads. The problem with this request was that there were already people living on those lands who would have had to be re-located, and many of them were Roman citizens. Gibbon writes:

Orestes, with a spirit which, in another situation, might be entitled to our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed multitude than to subscribe to the ruin of an innocent people. He rejected the audacious demand and his refusal was favourable to the ambition of Odoacer, a bold barbarian, who assured his fellow soldiers that, if they dared to associate under his command, they might soon extort the justice which had been denied to their dutiful petitions (547).

The soldiers went over to Odoacer's camp, and Orestes fled to the city of Pavia and mounted a defense. Odoacer marched on the city and, when it seemed it would fall, Orestes escaped and re-formed an army at Piacenza. Odoacer pursued him there, defeated him in battle, and had him executed. He was then declared king of Italy on 23 August 476 CE. The remnants of the Roman army, however, refused to accept him, and a final engagement, known as the Battle of Ravenna, was fought on 2 September 476 CE from which Odoacer emerged victorious. Two days later, on 4 September 476 CE, Romulus Augustulus was deposed and the Roman Empire in the west was finished. He was sent away to Campania under a kind of house arrest with a fixed annual allowance and disappears from history. The Roman senate, which was still a functioning entity, approved of Odoacer and wrote to the emperor in the east (who, at this time, was Zeno) that they no longer felt a western emperor was necessary in Rome, and the empire could easily be ruled from Constantinople in the east and by a king in the west. Regarding this situation, historian Guy Halsall writes:

Zeno's response was sharp. He reprimanded the Roman senate for having killed one emperor sent by the east (Anthemius) and exiled another (Julius Nepos) and urged them to accept Julius back. If Julius wished to bestow the patriciate upon Odoacer, that was for him to decide. Odoacer had no wish to see Julius return and so, rebuked by the imperial court and left with no other means of legitimation, he did what more than one military commander had done before in that situation: he declared himself king (281).

Although he had already been declared king by his troops, and his position approved by the Roman senate, Odoacer's personal declaration was made as an acceptance of this honor and, also perhaps, to send the message that he felt himself worthy to be king on equal standing with any other monarch. This may have been especially directed toward Zeno in order to make clear that Odoacer intended to rule as he pleased in accordance with the precepts of the Western Empire and was not seeking Zeno's explicit approval. Though initially displeased with what appeared to him to be lawlessness, Zeno recognized that having a barbarian king in the west, instead of a co-emperor, would greatly increase his prestige as sole ruler of the Roman Empire and so approved Odoacer's reign (no doubt with the thought in mind that he could always find a way to rid himself of Odoacer later). Odoacer, at around the age of 42, was now the most powerful man in Italy.

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