dethroned the previous emperor, Julius Nepos, and raised the young Romulus Augustulus to the imperial throne at Ravenna in 475. Though being the emperor, Romulus Augustulus was simply the mouthpiece for his father Orestes, who was the person who actually exercised power and governed Italy during Romulus Augustulus' short reign. Ten months after Romulus Augustulus' reign began, Orestes' soldiers under the command of one of his officers named Odoacer, rebelled and killed Orestes in the city of Pavia in 476. The rioting that took place as part of Odoacer's uprising against Orestes sparked fires that burnt much of Pavia to the point that Odoacer, as the new king of Italy, had to suspend the taxes for the city for five years so that it could finance its recovery. Without his father, Romulus Augustulus was powerless. Instead of killing Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer pensioned him off at 6,000 solidi a year before declaring the end of the Western Roman Empire and himself king of the new Kingdom of Italy. Odoacer's reign as king of Italy did not last long, because in 488 the Ostrogothic peoples led by their king Theoderic invaded Italy and waged war against Odoacer. After fighting for 5 years, Theoderic defeated Odoacer and on March 15, 493, assassinated Odoacer at a banquet meant to negotiate a peace between the two rulers. With the establishment of the Ostrogoth kingdom based in northern Italy, Theoderic began his vast program of public building. Pavia was among several cities that Theodoric chose to restore and expand. He began the construction of the vast palace complex that would eventually become the residence of Lombard monarchs several decades later. Theoderic also commissioned the building of the Roman-styled amphitheatre and bath complex in Pavia; in the seventh century these would be among the few still functioning bath complexes in Europe outside of the Eastern Roman Empire. Near the end of Theoderic's reign the Christian philosopher Boethius was imprisoned in one of Pavia's churches from 522 to 525 before his execution for treason. It was during Boethius' captivity in Pavia that he wrote his seminal work the Consolation of Philosophy. Pavia played an important role in the war between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths that began in 535. After the Eastern Roman general Belisarius's victory over the Ostrogothic leader Wittigis in 540 and the loss of most of the Ostrogoth lands in Italy, Pavia was