give him a pension of 6,000 solidi and sent him to Campania to live with his relatives. Following Romulus Augustus's deposition, according to the historian Malchus, upon hearing of the accession of Zeno to the throne, the Senate in Rome sent an embassy to the Eastern Emperor and bestowed upon him the Western imperial insignia. The message was clear: the West no longer required a separate Emperor, for "one monarch sufficed [to rule] the world". In response, Zeno accepted their gifts and this essentially brought to end any puppet emperors in the West, with Nepos banished and Anthemius dead. The Eastern Emperor then conferred upon Odoacer the title of Patrician and granted him legal authority to govern Italy in the name of Rome, as dux Italiae. Zeno also suggested that Odoacer should receive Nepos back as Emperor in the West, "if he truly wished to act with justice." Although he accepted the title of Patrician and Dux from Zeno, Odoacer did not invite Julius Nepos to return to Rome, and the latter remained in Dalmatia until his death. Odoacer was careful to observe form, however, and made a pretence of acting on Nepos's authority, even issuing coins with both his image and that of Zeno. Following Nepos's murder in 480, who was killed while waiting in Dalmatia, Zeno became sole Emperor. Bury, however, disagrees that Odoacer's assumption of power marked the fall of the Western Roman Empire: King of Italy In 476, Odoacer was proclaimed rex by his soldiers and dux Italiae by emperor Zeno, initiating a new era over Roman lands. According to Jordanes, at the beginning of his reign he "slew Count Bracila at Ravenna that he might inspire a fear of himself among the Romans." He took many military actions to strengthen his control over Italy and its neighboring areas. He achieved a solid diplomatic coup by inducing the Vandal king Gaiseric to cede Sicily to him. Noting that "Odovacar seized power in August of 476, Gaiseric died in January 477, and the sea usually became closed to navigation around the beginning of November", F.M. Clover dates this cession to September or October 476. When Julius Nepos was murdered by two of his retainers in his country house near Salona (9 May 480), Odoacer assumed the duty of pursuing and executing the assassins, and at the same time established his own rule in Dalmatia. As Bury points