#anthemius

And now I can't help but imagine that the ring got back to the Burgundians... Resulting in them growing arrogant and opposing the Roman Emperor Majorian when he made his attempt to restore the West, and thus their crushing defeat. But then Majorian took possession of the ring... And suddenly his fleet to reconquer Africa, and thus get the revenue to raise more native Roman troops and reduce the reliance on Germanic foederati, is destroyed by a fire, and then he's betrayed and killed by the until then loyal Ricimer, ending the last chance of the Western Roman Empire for resurgence.

Thus Ricimer takes possession of the ring... And sends it to its legitimate owner, because he's heard of the cursed ring and he's not going to die like that. Resulting in Ricimer eventually dying peacefully in his bed after years as the kingmaker in the West, though the same residual influence of the ring that pushed him to betray his ally already made him greedy and power hungry.

BUT the ring didn't find its way to his owner, the messenger was intercepted by Marcellinus, a loyalist of Majorian, who kept it. It's with the ring's power that the West pays his part of the joint expedition to reconquer Africa under Anthemius, but Ricimer grows suspicious. He knows the state of the West's finances, so where did Marcellinus find all that gold? So Ricimer interferes with the expedition to try and find out, giving the Vandals time to build their fireships and fool the overall commander Basiliscus into leaving the fleet exposed. The expedition fails, and Ricimer has found out of the ring and has Marcellinus assassinated because THAT THING IS DANGEROUS. He once again tries to send it back to the owner, but Anthemius, who didn't trust Ricimer because of his murder of Majorian and then installing a puppet ruler before keeping the throne vacant until he showed up from the East to claim it, has the messenger intercepted, sees the letter claim the ring is cursed, and keeps it because he's a Christian and doesn't believe it.

The relation between Ricimer and Anthemius slowly crumbles even as the former loyally fights the Vandals to protect Italy, until Ricimer's ally Romanus, before being executed for unrelated reasons, finds out, and Ricimer IMMEDIATELY MARCHES ON ROME to get rid of the ring. He takes the city, calms the Vandals down by proclaiming their favorite Emperor, has Anthemius beheaded, and once again sends the ring back, and this time the messenger finds Andvar. When the messenger comes back, Ricimer dies of sheer relief, as he kept the cursed ring away from himself and especially his son.