To the combined Siegfried-Nibelung story various historical elements were added during the fifth century. At the beginning of this period the Franks were located on the left bank of the Rhine from Coblenz downward. Further up the river, that is, to the south, the Burgundians had established a kingdom in what is now the Rhenish Palatinate, their capital being Worms and their king "Gundahar", or "Gundicarius", as the Romans called him. For twenty years the Burgundians lived on good terms with the surrounding nations. Then, growing bolder, they suddenly rose against the Romans in the year 436, but the rebellion was quietly suppressed by the Roman general Aetius. Though defeated, the Burgundians were not subdued, and the very next year they broke their oaths and again sought to throw off the Roman yoke. This time the Romans called to their aid the hordes of Huns, who had been growing rapidly in power and were already pressing hard upon the German nations from the east. Only too glad for an excuse, the Huns poured into the land in great numbers and practically swept the Burgundian people from the face of the earth. According to the Roman historians, twenty thousand Burgundians were slain in this great battle of the Catalaunian Fields. Naturally this catastrophe, in which a whole German nation fell before the hordes of invading barbarians, produced a profound impression upon the Teutonic world. The King Gundahar, the Gunther of the "Nibelungenlied", who also fell in the battle, became the central figure of a new legend, namely, the story of the fall of the Burgundians.