In 411 AD, the Burgundian kingGunther in cooperation with Goar, king of the Alans, set up Jovinus as a puppet emperor. Under the pretext of Jovinus' imperial authority, Gunther settled on the western bank of the Rhine, between the river Lauter and the Nahe, seizing the settlements of Borbetomagus, Speyer, and Strasbourg. Apparently as part of a truce, the Emperor Honorius later officially "granted" them the land. The Burgundians established their capital at Borbetomagus. Olympiodorus of Thebes also mentions a Guntiarios who was called "commander of the Burgundians" in the context of the 411 usurping of Germania Secunda by Jovinus. Despite their new status as foederati, Burgundian raids into Roman upper Gallia Belgica became intolerable to the Romans and were ruthlessly brought to an end in 436, when the Roman generalFlavius Aetius called in Hun mercenaries who overwhelmed the kingdom in 437. Gunther was killed in the fighting, reportedly along with the majority of the Burgundians. The campaign was the origin of the mediæval Nibelungenlied poem. Gunther was succeeded as king by Gunderic in 437. After 443, the remaining Burgundians were resettled by Aetius to the Sapaudia region of present-day central France, again as foederati, in the Roman province of Maxima Sequanorum, where they established their capital at Lugdunum. Their efforts to enlarge their kingdom down the Rhone river brought them into conflict with the Visigothic Kingdom in the south. In 451, Gunderic joined forces with Aetius against Attila, leader of the Huns, in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. When Gunderic died in 473, his kingdom was divided among his four sons: Gundobad, Chilperic II, Gundomar/Godomar and Godegisel. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, King Gundobad allied with the mighty Frankish king Clovis I against the threat of the Ostrogothic king, Theoderic the Great. Gundobad was thereby able to secure the Burgundian acquisitions, and compile the Lex Burgundionum, an Ancient Germanic law code. Later, when Rome was no longer able to afford protection to the inhabitants of Gaul, the Sequani became merged in the newly formed Kingdom of Burgundy. According to Gregory of Tours, in 493 Gundobad slew his brother Chilperic II and exiled his daughter Clotilde, who was married to the MerovingianClovis, King of the Franks, who had just conquered northern Gaul. The decline of the kingdom began when they came under attack from their former Frankish allies. In 523, the sons of King Clovis campaigned in the Burgundian lands, instigated by their mother Clotilde, in revenge for Gundobad's murder of her father. In 532, the Burgundians were decisively defeated by the Franks at the Battle of Autun, whereafter King Godomar was killed and Burgundy incorporated into the Frankish kingdom in 534.
