70 replies to this topic

[Lunatic]

@Deuce

1)Ollonois' memories are inexact: the episode with Conan fighting in the arena with a certain empress "Auraldia" is happening in NEMEDIA and not in Aquilonia
(ssoc 146 or 147 if I remember)
Besides Dixon wrote the scenario and Nemedia is depicted as Rome , clichéed as we've all seen it in sword'n sandal movies.


2)You say Tarantia comes from Tara, the fabled place of the Ard Ri, but why did Howard lenghthen it with -ntia making it sound like Tarento ?

Tarento in latin is Tarentum which comes from greek Taras.

We all know Howard always delighted to find some odd link between similar sounding names (Tara/Taras) didn't he? So from Tara&Tamar to Taras(Tarentum)...nothing more natural for him I guess

Quimper in Brittany was called Civitas Aquilonia , and Brittany was founded by Conan Meriadec according to Monmouth. I bet that influenced his choice for "Aquilonia" ?

I think you are referring to the city of Taranto in Apulia, Italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranto

[Lunatic]

Sometimes I wonder "what if" gunpowder had not been invented and if europe might have "evolved" back in to a type of roman style civilization.

But in Hour of the Dragon, Conan states that "this is the time of empire". I imagine that he is talking about the modern early renaissance style of kingdom. Apart from the feudal medieval one. So, Numedides is the regent of a state and an empire.

About the latin style names, could it be that Acheron is the "roman" empire in Howard´s mind and the area of Aquilionia, Nemedia, Ophir and such still have the names, because they were within the borders of ancient Acheron. In the same way that Italy, Spain and France developed latin languages, Italian, spanish and french...because they were central in the western roman empire.

[Lunatic]

Still...is this cool?

I try to imagine laquered hat, pirat boots, tight silk pants and such when I recently read "The black stranger". I am sorry, but I just cant get the Shakespear dress, and clothing into my head as something Conan would wear. Call me evil, but then I prefer the aquiroman style for comics at least.

Then again, hyboria has a warmer climate, no specific moral about underdressing and showing skin? Maybe silk pants can look really savage...perhaps the way a fighter would wear silk pants in the ring, without looking suspicious.

The mongols wore silk, they looked tough enough, (I guess).

[Ironhand]

REH definitely portrayed pirates, including Conan the pirate, in something resembling what we think of as "pirate togs".

As for your idea of the Medievaloid states of Hyboria evolving into something like a classical imperium, even if something like that might happen sociologically, it would not happen technologically. Late medieval armor was far superior to Roman armor, both metalurgically, and in terms of fit and function. Why would soldiers give that up? Although European kingdoms harbored nostalgia for the Roman Empire (with each king dreaming of being himself the Emperor), knights and soldiers did not harbor nostalgia for Roman armor (theirs was so much better). Indeed, most artists of the medieval and Renaissance periods depicted Roman legions with "modern", ie, contemporary, arms and armor, because it was all they knew.

[Lunatic]

Actually I will edit that out probably, it is one of my lunacies....

However, the social development is what I was "thinking" about. A medieval army may very well be superior in arms, and even fighting. But, the size of the roman army would be far superior, due to better organisation and logistics, communications...

Also, late medieval armour was developed in a time when gunpowder was used.

[Ironhand]

Actually, what we see as gunpowder took over warfare, was the diminution and disappearance of armor. But armor actually reached its highest development as gunpowder was just beginning to make its appearance. For a very brief period, armor tried to coexist with gunpowder, before being driven off the battlefield. In the absence of gunpowder, who knows what technological heights armor might have reached?

Edited by Ironhand, 29 January 2012 - 07:00 AM.

[deuce]

Sometimes I wonder "what if" gunpowder had not been invented and if europe might have "evolved" back in to a type of roman style civilization

Actually, gunpowder (or something very like it) HAD been invented within/before Conan's lifetime. There are "rockets" in the UNEDITED and original version of REH's The Black Stranger..

Like Ironhand, I really don't see Conan-era Hyborian civilization morphing into a Roman-style culture. Not exactly. The simple (and, to some, sad) fact is that technology (in some categories) DID advance during the medieval period. So did social institutions like universities (which really weren't known in their modern sense in Classical civilization). All such factors would tend to skew things away from a Roman-style civilization.

All such speculations would be best looked at (and dealt with) on THESE threads (and NOT this one) :

"Alternate" Post-Conan Hyborian Age: http://www.conan.com...?showtopic=1620

The Hyborian Age: History and Geography: http://www.conan.com...p?showtopic=162

But in Hour of the Dragon, Conan states that "this is the time of empire". I imagine that he is talking about the modern early renaissance style of kingdom. Apart from the feudal medieval one. So, Numedides is the regent of a state and an empire.

Exactly. REH (judging from his letters) was almost certainly referring to the late medieval/early Renaissance period where you have the Hundred Years' War, the Spanish Golden Age and the Thirty Years' War. Not to mention the repeated attempts of the Ottomans to take control of central Europe

Numedides/Namedides would seem more analogous to Stephen I and King John,

About the latin style names, could it be that Acheron is the "roman" empire in Howard´s mind and the area of Aquilionia, Nemedia, Ophir and such still have the names, because they were within the borders of ancient Acheron. In the same way that Italy, Spain and France developed latin languages, Italian, spanish and french...because they were central in the western roman empire.

Don't forget to mention Corinthia in that list within the sphere of Acheron's dominion.

As myself (and others) have pointed out here ( http://www.conan.com...?showtopic=4938 ) Acheron makes sense as the "Hyborian Age 'Roman Empire' ". Latter-day Aquilonia does not. Robert E. Howard obviously hated Acheron and all it stood for. The same cannot be said for Aquilonia. Aquilonia simply became arrogant (and slightly decadent) CENTURIES AFTER the reign of Conan. You cannot find where REH truly found an "admirable" period in Roman history. The "pre-Republican" period was just less distasteful.

[Axerules]

Sometimes I wonder "what if" gunpowder had not been invented and if europe might have "evolved" back in to a type of roman style civilization

Actually, gunpowder (or something very like it) HAD been invented within/before Conan's lifetime. There are "rockets" in the UNEDITED and original version of REH's The Black Stranger..

Deuce, there's another example in "Black Colossus." Natohk the Veiled One used a kind of "explosive powder" during the Battle of Shamla Pass:

The horde had halted. From the extreme wing rushed a chariot, the naked charioteer lashing the steeds like a madman; the other occupant was a tall figure whose robe floated spectrally on the wind. He held in his arms a great vessel of gold and from it poured a thin stream that sparkled in the sunlight. Across the whole front of the desert horde the chariot swept, and behind its thundering wheels was left, like the wake behind a ship, a long thin powdery line that glittered in the sands like the phosphorescent track of a serpent.
"That's Natohk!" swore Amalric. "What hellish seed is he sowing?"
The charging knights had not checked their headlong pace. Another fifty paces and they would crash into the uneven Kushite ranks, which stood motionless, spears lifted. Now the foremost knights had reached the thin line that glittered across the sands. They did not heed that crawling menace. But as the steel-shod hoofs of the horses struck it, it was as when steel strikes flint — but with more terrible result. A terrific explosion rocked the desert, which seemed to split apart along the strewn line with an awful burst of white flame.
In that instant the whole foremost line of the knights was seen enveloped in that flame, horses and steel-clad riders withering in the glare like insects in an open blaze. The next instant the rear ranks were piling up on their charred bodies. Unable to check their headlong velocity, rank after rank crashed into the ruins. With appalling suddenness the charge had turned into a shambles where armored figures died amid screaming, mangled horses.

[Lunatic]

Axerules

Luckily for all, I don´t know much about explosives...but that sounds like landmines to me...magic landmines. Not exactly bombs then...

Deuce

I am not exactly sure now... what version I have been reading. But there was one rocket in Black Stranger used as a signal from the pirateship.
http://en.wikipedia....tory_of_rockets
But this example and Axerules´ are they enough to imply that bombs and military rockets were widely used?
...in that case, why didn´t Stroms´men just try and blow up the zingaran fort in the beginning of the story, insted of hacking at the gates with axes in broad daylight?

About universities, the earliest ones built in europe were places of higher learning and the study of (Roman!) Law. Certainly there were academies and higher learning in the ancient world and outside of europe.

Ironhand
Consider the cost of a knight compared to a roman legionaire. And then add the diffence in wealth between a feudal warlord and a modern state, drawing resources from a vast trading network. Also, with evolution of armour come evolution of weaponry. The Lorica segmentata was sufficient while cheap, beacause of standardised parts that could be replaced. This is why a soldier would prefer a knights armour, but the army would give him the cheap stuff...

The gun on the other hand, is the equalizer...

[Axerules]

Lunatic, I'm not a specialist either but a landmine IS an explosive device. But OK, Natohk's 'magic' wasn't exactly gunpowder (I talked of "a kind of explosive powder"). The Veiled Prophet was a sorcerer and his powder wasn't something you would expect to find routinely during the Hyborian Age. None said in this topic that "bombs and military rockets were widely used" but just that explosive powder wasn't totally unheard of.

[deuce]

Part Three of "Aquiromian Holiday":


http://theblogthatti...holiday_30.html

Mr. Harron really starts to hammer the nails in the coffin now.

[deuce]

when you read a book for the first time (if it has been made into a movie yet) you get an image
in your head from the descripitive in the text.
how you picture a character , the landscape ,ect depend entirely on your
own imagination .

when you read about the aquilonians do you picture some knights templar in
jousting armor with longsword & kite shields or do you see roman legionnaires in
musculata with pilum , gladius & scutum shileds ?

personaly when back when i think of the siege of veranium, i see a bunch
of celts assaulting a roman fort

that's the beauty of books compare to movies:every one gets his very own
image of the story

Taking things on a slight tangent, here's part of the late Steve Tompkins' essay, "Aboriginal Demons":



"Alfred Kazin discerned in Puritanism "America’s Middle Ages," and a case can be made that the Puritans were the only Americans who actually dwelt in a sword-and-sorcery universe (so that when an American writer eventually created a Puritan sword-and-sorcery hero, we came full circle). For later Americans Indians were savages, primitives, or even vermin, but only the Puritans were in a position (embattled) to employ the terminology of the Pictish Wilderness stories-devils, demons, fiends-and believe every word. Here is Malcolm Cowley, in his essay "Cycles of Myth in American Writing":
To the first settlers everything beyond the narrow clearings was not only
strange but hostile and satanic. The New Englanders in particular regarded
themselves "as a people of God settled in those which were once the devil’s
territories; and it may easily be supposed," said the pious Cotton Mather,"that
the Devil was exceeding disturbed when he perceived such a people here
accomplishing the purpose made of old unto our Blessed Jesus, that he should
have the utmost parts of the earth for his possession." Cotton Mather and his
friends believed that the forest, which they hated and feared...was Satan’s
shadowy dominion.
Richard Slotkin preserved this mindset, bedevilled and be-wildernessed, in his anthology So Dreadfull a Judgement: Puritan Responses to King Phillip’s War 1676-1677 (Wesleyan University Press, 1978) after first stressing its attendant stresses in Regeneration Through Violence:
The eternal presence of the native people of the woods, dark of skin and seemingly
dark of mind, mysterious, bloody, cruel,"devil-worshipping:" to these must be added the sense of exile-the psychological anxieties attendant upon the tearing up of home
roots for wide wandering outward in space and, apparently, backward in time."


The rest of Tompk's essay can be found here:

http://www.robert-e-...nGryphons1.html

[deuce]

Axerules

Luckily for all, I don´t know much about explosives...but that sounds like landmines to me...magic landmines. Not exactly bombs then...

Deuce

I am not exactly sure now... what version I have been reading. But there was one rocket in Black Stranger used as a signal from the pirateship.
http://en.wikipedia....tory_of_rockets
But this example and Axerules´ are they enough to imply that bombs and military rockets were widely used?
.

No, and neither Axe nor myself said otherwise.

The rocket was fired by Barachans, NOT Aquilonians.

My apologies for assisting you in dragging this thread off-topic. Feel free to speculate in the threads linked above.

[Boot]

I like the "look" of Aquilonia in Age of Conan. There is a taste of many things, but Tarantia, at least, is distinctly unique--built upon a lot of flavors. I love the stone look of Tarantia. The weapons and armor are very "Roman" looking. And, it's what I see in my minds eye, more than medieval France, when I read stories set in Aquilonia.

[Ironhand]

I like the "look" of Aquilonia in Age of Conan. There is a taste of many things, but Tarantia, at least, is distinctly unique--built upon a lot of flavors. I love the stone look of Tarantia. The weapons and armor are very "Roman" looking. And, it's what I see in my minds eye, more than medieval France, when I read stories set in Aquilonia.

I won't argue with this. You are entitled to to your own taste within your mind's eye.

[Lunatic]

I salute you Bront, you now have a Lunatic minion. I hear the wisdom!
...
I agree with Ironhand though, this being a REH:forum and all...that the Hyborian world has medievel qualities as well as ancient. But to me it is mostly ancient. I have 2 things to ramble about today:

1 So REH may for whatever reason have hated Rome...what is to say he loves Aquilonia? Sounds like a terrible country...greatly improves when a barbarian takes over. What did he hate about it?
2 REH, wrote many historical tales. Why even invent a hyborian fantasyworld, unless he wanted flexibility and something unique to write about? Why go Braveheart on it...

[amster]

1 So REH may for whatever reason have hated Rome...what is to say he loves Aquilonia?

Because he created it, and spent a considerable amount of time writing about and mapping it out in great detail. How many individual provinces can you name in, say, Zingara? How many in Aquilonia? Let's see...off the top of my head, there's the Bossonian Marches, Gunderland, and Poitain. They have a phrase for that kind of commitment. It's called a labor of love.

[Lunatic]

Amster

I hate my job...just saying..

[deuce]

I like the "look" of Aquilonia in Age of Conan. There is a taste of many things, but Tarantia, at least, is distinctly unique--built upon a lot of flavors. I love the stone look of Tarantia. The weapons and armor are very "Roman" looking. And, it's what I see in my minds eye, more than medieval France, when I read stories set in Aquilonia.

Exactly who said that "Aquilonia=Medieval France"? Sure wasn't me.

Boot, have you ever heard of the "Angevin Empire"? I sincerely hope so, since it is part of your own nation's history.

Here's a map link:

http://www.xenophong...ie/angevine.htm

To the east is Capetian France and the HRE (a combination of which seems to be the basis for Nemedia)

To the north are Gaelic Highlanders.

To the south is Spain (Zingara)

To the west are the wild Cymric bowmen of Wales (or, even farther, the savage Gaels). BOTH would work as "Pictish" stand-ins.

Have you heard of the House of Plantagenet?

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Plantagenet

You've got the lion as a heraldic symbol.
Poitain's symbol was a leopard. The same is true for Angevin Aquitaine.
Howard's description of "Attalus" is quite congruent with Harold Lamb's for Toulouse.

There is just about NOTHING to suggest "Rome" in Robert E. Howard's descriptions of Tarantia. If you got 'em (as opposed to vague feelings), post 'em here. By all means.

As an example of "feelings" and "gut reactions"...

I could say that I "feel" that Tarantia looks like Chichen Itza. Sure, it doesn't match what REH described, nor does it square with Robert E. Howard's stated interests, BUT, it DOES equate to my own "feelings".

Did I mention how I envisioned Aquilonian cavalry looking like Rajputs and Gundermen looking like Incan pikemen? Just my "gut reaction".

See how this silliness works, Boot?

High/Late Medieval armor and weapons were better made (and designed) for their intended functions than Roman Imperial versions (equally so, at the least). Show me where Robert E. Howard describes gladii or lorica segmentata in his Hyborian Age yarns.

I'd love to know (on another thread) what infatuates you so much about the Greco-Roman period (weapons and armor-wise). I can see things like public works, but manly stuff like weaponry? Western Medieval Europe designed/forged the Imperium into the ground. ESPECIALLY in regards to a lone warrior's kit. Like I said, ANOTHER THREAD.

However, as Ironhand said, your "feelings" are your own, Just don't confuse them with Robert E. Howard's.

[deuce]

Amster

I hate my job...just saying..

Just sayin'...

Where are Robert E. Howard's tales set within the Roman Imperium? There's one scene in Worms of the Earth. Anything else? Your comic collection doesn't count.