Novus America wrote:United Muscovite Nations wrote:You have your history confused, Odoacer didn't seize or sack Rome, he, as an officer in the Roman Army, deposed Romulus Augustus and petitioned the Emperor Zeno for the recognition of his authority after his troops named him King of Italy.
Legal entities are social constructs, if the people in your territory believe you to be the sole legitimate authority, then that is the case.
Fair enough that I made a mistake there.
But I do agree 476 is a bad date to mark the end of the Roman Empire.
He did however seize power and only ask for recognition after, that does not happen in a properly functioning state.
However states are much MORE than just a social construct, obviously.
If not any self proclaimed micro nation or pretender would be a state.
People in both North and South Korea consider themselves Korean.
But Korea does not exist as one state.
There are still self proclaimed Yugoslavs, but Yugoslavia does not exist as a state at all.
It had happened many times in Roman history, even before you had more than one emperor, it wasn't that unusual in the Roman Empire to have transitions where the army deposes the Emperor. There were two times in Roman history (both of them before Diocletian created the Tetrarchy) where you had one year where it happened 4 or more times (Year of Four Emperors and Year of Five Emperors). It happened like 20 or 30 times in the Crisis of the Third Century.
If the people holding power considered themselves to be one state, it would become inevitable that they would eventually exist as one state, in the case of the Roman Empire, the people holding power considered themselves one state, which is why they cooperated so closely. If you wanted to become Emperor legally in East or West, you had to get the approval of the reigning Emperor from the other half of the Empire, and there were times where the Eastern Emperor deposed Western pretenders who failed to get this recognition.