Romulus der Grosse

Romulus the Great (1949)

Friedrich Dürrenmatt 

Comedy set during the Teutonic drive on Rome in A.D. 476.

Romulus, last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, busies himself with his chicken farm, ignoring his wife, ministers, and Zeno, ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire, who urges him to take action against the invading enemy. When Caesar Rupf, an affluent merchant, offers to help repel the invasion in exchange for Romulus' daughter, Romulus declines the proposition, confessing that he assumed his imperial post for the express purpose of hastening the dissolution of the corrupt empire. After the Emperor's wife and daughter drown while attempting to escape the Teutons, Odoacer, the victor, arrives. He reveals himself to be, like Romulus, a chicken fancier bent on seeing his own nation liquidated, for he fears that Theodoric, his war-loving nephew and successor, will transform the Teutons into a savage horde of conquerors. As a makeshift solution to their dilemma, Odoacer decides that he must govern the land while Romulus, who yearns for death to expiate his betrayal of Rome, lives out his years in pensioned retirement in a villa. Both leaders thus resign themselves to a compromise they realize is only temporary; as soon as Theodoric is strong enough, he will surely rise to power, kill both of them, and pursue the fateful course of history.