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From an administrative point of view the Roman Empire in the West did not come to an end when Romulus Augustulus was deposed in A. D. 476 Generally speaking, the kingdoms of Odoacer and Theoderic were administered by the same agencies that had managed the empire since the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine. It is not surprising that there should have been much apparent continuity between late imperial and barbarian rule. The bureaucratic apparatus of empire, no matter how corrupt and cumbersome, was at least adapted to the needs of a civilized state, and it made sense to gratify the traditional ambitions of the senatorial establishment by maintaining ancient offices for its tenure. No wonder that an anonymous chronicler could remark that Theoderic ‘maintained the civil service for the Romans as it had been under the emperors.’

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