The Eastern Roman Emperor, Leo I the Thracian, tarried in choosing his successor, so the Germanic elements of the army, represented by the new Magister militum and Patrician, Gundobad ( a nephew of Ricimer's ), elected Glycerius Emperor on March 3 or 5, 473 in Ravenna.

Paul the Deacon reports that Olybrius next appointed Gundobad as his Patrician.

Then when the Franks attacked the Burgundians in the decade after 500, Alaric assisted the ruling house, and according to Wolfram the victorious Burgundian king Gundobad ceded Avignon to Alaric.

It is possible that Gundobad, who was absent from Italy when Glycerius was deposed, had gone to Gaul to gather some more troops or to receive the legacy of his father Gundioc as King of the Burgundians, thus effectively leaving Glycerius alone.

In 523 Clotilde finally took revenge for the murder of her father, when she incited her sons against her cousin King Sigismund of Burgundy, the son of Gundobad, and provoked the Burgundian War, which led to Sigismund's deposition and imprisonment, and his assassination the following year.

After the death of Olybrius there was a further inter-regnum until March 473, when Gundobad proclaimed Glycerius emperor.

Gesalec's rule was dealt a decisive blow when the Burgundians, led by their king Gundobad, captured and plundered Narbonne, his capital.

Both sides appealed to the army in Gaul, but the Magister militum per Gallias, the Burgundian Gundobad, supported his uncle Ricimer.

* 473 – Gundobad ( nephew of Ricimer ) nominates Glycerius as emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

* March 3 – Gundobad ( nephew of Ricimer ) nominates Glycerius as emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

He was in reality a puppet ruler, put on the throne by the Roman general of Germanic descent Ricimer, and was mainly interested in religion, while the actual power was held by Ricimer and his nephew Gundobad.

Then Ricimer besieged the part of Rome where Anthemius was for several months until the lawful Emperor was abandoned by his partisans, captured in a church and put to death by Gundobad, Ricimer's nephew.

A few days after the death of Anthemius, Ricimer also died, on August 9 or 19 ; his nephew Gundobad Magister militum was elevated in his place.

The emperor fled for the second time to St. Peter's ( or, according to other sources, to Santa Maria in Trastevere ), where he was captured and beheaded by Gundobad or by Ricimer on 11 July 472.

Both Ricimer and Olybrius ( who was never acknowledged and was considered a usurper by the Eastern Emperor ) died in 472, and were replaced by the Burgundian prince Gundobad and his puppet Emperor Glycerius, a former court functionary.

Gundobad, a nephew of Ricimer, also joined the cause of his kinsman.

Although further Emperors would don the purple on the basis of military power ( e. g., Constantine I, Valentinian I, and Theodosius I ), the phenomenon of the barracks emperors died out, to be replaced in the late imperial era by shadow emperors like Stilicho, Constantius III, Flavius Aëtius, Avitus, Ricimer, Gundobad, Flavius Orestes, and Odoacer, military strongmen who effectually ruled the empire as imperial generalissimos controlling weak-willed puppet emperors rather than by donning the purple themselves.

Glycerius ' deposition was thus without any bloodshed, and historians investigated the possible reasons why the Western Emperor, who had Gundobad and his army at his command did not try to resist.

Nepos was married to the niece of Eastern Roman Emperor Leo I, hence his nepos — " nephew " — agnomen, and was named as Emperor in the West by Leo in 474, in order to end the reign of the usurper Glycerius, who had been raised to the throne by the Burgundian magister militum Gundobad in the western capital of Ravenna.

Clovis sided with Godegisel, who had offered him his pleasure of tribute ; Wood observes archly that Clovis ' wife, Clotilde, whose father had been killed by Gundobad, " was not likely to encourage good relations between the Franks and the Burgundians.

In the Lex Burgundionum, issued by the Burgundian king Gundobad ( c. 480 – 516 ), it is decreed that those who were free under the kings Gibica, Gundomar, Gislaharius, and Gundaharius will remain free.

His position as " Shadow Emperor " was in turn held by his nephew Gundobad and Orestes ; Odoacer simply overthrew Orestes's puppet Emperor, Romulus Augustus, in 476 and ruled Italy as nominal subordinate of the Emperor-in-exile, Julius Nepos, who continued to reign in Dalmatia until 480.

The Eastern Roman Emperor Leo I had not recognised Olybrius, and also did not recognise Glycerius, as his election had not been ratified by the Eastern court, and it was suspected that he was a puppet of Gundobad.

Upon the death of Chilperic's father King Gondioc in 473, he and his brothers Gundobad and Godegisel had divided their inheritance ; Chilperic II apparently reigning at Lyon, Gundobald at Vienne and Godegesil at Geneva.

His earliest documented acts on behalf of the Ostrogothic ruler were to investigate allegations that the paymaster of Theodoric's Bodyguards had debased the coins of their pay, to produce a water-clock which Theodoric intended to give to king Gundobad of the Burgunds, and to recruit a lyre-player to perform for king Clovis of the Franks.

According to John of Antioch, Gundobad had previously executed the deposed emperor Anthemius on his uncle's orders.

However, not long after Gundobad left for Burgundy where his father, Gundioc, had died ; the exact date is unclear, with authorities stating it was in either 473 or 474.

According to Gregory Gundobad had his wife drowned after tying a stone round her neck and Chilperic's two daughters driven into exile.

The good king Guntram first took a concubine Veneranda, a slave belonging to one of his people, by whom he had a son Gundobad.

In 474 Julius Nepos, nephew and successor of the general Marcellinus, arrived in Rome with soldiers and authority from the eastern emperor Leo I. Gundobad had already left to contest the Burgundian throne in Gaul and Glycerius gave up without a fight, retiring to become bishop of Salona in Dalmatia.

* " EPAO, SYNOD OF: A synod held in Sept., 517, at Epao or Epaone, a village to the south of Vienne, near the present Anneyron, at that time part of the kingdom of Burgundy, where a year earlier the Arian king Gundobad had been succeeded by his orthodox son Sigismund.

One possible reason is that Glycerius ' elevation, not recognised by Eastern court, received the support of neither the Roman Senate nor the Gallic-Roman aristocracy ; resisting Nepos without the support of the Senate would have been a bad choice for Gundobad.

During his rule he is mainly interested in religion while the actual power is in the hands of Gundobad.

* King Gundobad breaks his promise of tribute and regains his military power.

Once in power, Gundobad elevated the current Count of the Domestics, Glycerius, to the position of Western Roman Emperor.

Gundobad later broke his promise of tribute as he regained his power and besieged Godegisel, locked up in the city of Vienne.

Clovis then asked Gundobad for Clotilde's hand in marriage.

" Further, Avitus alludes to Gundobad's intent to marry his deceased daughter to a foreign ruler, whom they suggest was Clovis: " Indeed ," they write, " Clovis is really the only likely candidate as a prospective son-in-law for Gundobad shortly after 501.

But Aridius went from Gundobad to Clovis and convinced him to spare Gundobad in return for a yearly tribute.

The Burgundian general Gundobad assumes command of the Western army.

* Gundobad returns to Burgundy where his father Gondioc has died and becomes king of the Burgundians.

Gundobad died peacefully, succeeded by his son Sigismund in 516.

Olybrius, his new emperor, named Gundobad as his patrician, then shortly died himself.