Xiao Yan soon defeats Xiao Baojuan and by 502 has overthrown Southern Qi and established the Liang Dynasty as its Emperor Wu.

The Liang general Chen Bozhi subsequently tries to surrender Jiang Province (modern Jiangxi and Fujian) to Northern Wei, but Liang forces defeat both Chen and the Northern Wei forces sent to reinforce him, and Chen flees to Northern Wei.

For the next few years, however, there will continually be war between the two rivals, particularly with Northern Wei creating Southern Qi's prince Xiao Baoyin, who flees Southern Qi as Xiao Yan is beginning to kill members of the Southern Qi imperial clan, naming him the Prince of Qi and announcing that it will help him reestablish Southern Qi.

Xiao Baojuan's forces, commanded by the generals Wang Zhenguo and Zhang Ji, are initially able to hold the defenses.

However, Xiao Baojuan's associates then tell him that they believe that the reason why Jiankang remains under siege is because Wang and Zhang are not fighting with all their strength—which lead Wang and Zhang to be apprehensive, and they assassinate Xiao Baojuan and surrender.

Anastasius responds to the Persians' attack by building forts to secure his eastern frontier.

The Bulgars, a semi-nomadic people who have absorbed the surviving Huns, ravage Thrace, meeting no opposition from imperial forces.

The nomadic Hephthalites, or White Huns, help Sassanid ruler Kavadh regain the Persian throne from his usurping brother in exchange for a tribute.

The situation is exacerbated by recent changes in the flow of the Tigris in lower Mesopotamia, sparking famines and flood.

Kavadh, short on funds, requests financial assistance from Eastern Roman emperor Anastasius, who refuses and begins to interfere in the affairs of Persian Armenia.

Kavadh invades Eastern Roman Armenia in 502 and takes Theodosiopolis, the province’s major city.

War between the Roman Empire and Sassanid Persia erupts in 502, when Anastasius refuses to pay a share for the defense of the Caucasian Gates, a pass through which nomadic tribes often raid Persia and Constantinople.

Kavadh besieges the fortress-city of Amida (modern Turkey).

Exilarch Mar Zutra II and his grandfather, Mar Hananiah, after seven years of independence wrested from Persia, are taken prisoner and executed, and their bodies nailed to the cross on the bridge of Machuza.

In the ensuing persecutions, the office of Exilarch will remain for some time in abeyance.

The colleges are closed, and the teachers driven into hiding.

The Ghassanids, a pro-Roman Christian Arab dynasty whose kingdom encompasses parts of present Syria, Jordan, and Israel, wage near-incessant war with the Lakhmids.

The wars between the two are proxy wars waged at the bidding of either the Persians or the Eastern Romans.

The events of the first decades of Gundobad's reign are not well known.

Our only source is Gregory of Tours, who wrote almost a century later.

According to Gregory, Gundobad set about ridding himself of his brothers.

First slain was Gundomar, though little is known of this encounter.

Next killed was Chilperic.

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

The older daughter, Chroma became a nun.

The other, Clotilde, had been seen by envoys of Clovis I, King of the Franks, who told their master of her beauty and intelligence.

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

Gundobad was said to be afraid to deny him.

However, a letter written by Avitus, bishop of Vienne, consoling Gundobad on the death of an unnamed daughter, gives details that suggest there was more to the story.

According to the explication of Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood of Avitus' notoriously difficult Latin, the bishop writes, "In the past, with ineffable tender-heartedness, you mourned the deaths of your brothers."

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."

If their reading is correct, then it is likely that Clotilde was offered to Clovis as a replacement, as an act of diplomacy not subservience.

Caesarius becomes bishop of Arles.

His episcopal see, near the mouth of the Rhone River and close to Marseille, will retain its ancient importance in social and commercial life of Gaul for forty years.