The influences behind Conan the Barbarian

28 works across 28 centuries, back to The Iliad and Poems of Alcaeus.

1982

Conan the Barbarian

Film by John Milius

New Hollywood. United States. In English.

John Milius's 1982 sword-and-sorcery epic, co-written with Oliver Stone, follows a Cimmerian enslaved as a boy who grows into a warrior and takes revenge on the serpent-cult leader Thulsa Doom. It builds its episodes from Robert E. Howard's Weird Tales stories, opens with an epigraph from Nietzsche, and stages its battles with the Kurosawa films Milius admired in mind.
Where it came from
Where to watch
- Stream Netflix
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In the US, as of October 12. Prices and services change.
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1954

Seven Samurai

Film by Akira Kurosawa

Golden age of Japanese cinema. Japan. In Japanese.

Farmers hire seven masterless samurai to defend their village against bandits.

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Milius often spoke of Kurosawa as a model. The battle at the Mounds, where a handful of fighters prepares traps and stakes against a larger mounted force, follows the village-defense design of Seven Samurai, and the opening raid of horsemen on a village in the snow recalls the bandit attacks.
Where it came from
- Stagecoach, film by John Ford 1939 follow this thread
Where to watch
- Stream HBO Max, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
- Free Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, Shout! Factory TV
- Rent Amazon $3.99, Google Play $2.99, Apple TV $3.99, Fandango at Home $5.99
- Buy Amazon $14.99, Google Play $9.99, Apple TV $14.99, Fandango at Home $14.99
In the US, as of October 12. Prices and services change.
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1939

Stagecoach

Film by John Ford

Classical Hollywood. United States. In English.

A mixed group of travelers crosses Apache territory by stagecoach.

What it handed down

To Seven Samurai (1954)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Kurosawa repeatedly named John Ford as the director he learned from. Seven Samurai's horsemen sweeping across open ground and its band of mismatched fighters under siege draw on Ford's westerns, of which Stagecoach's Apache chase is the best-known example.
Where it came from
- Stage to Lordsburg, Ernest Haycox 1937 follow this thread
- Boule de Suif, Guy de Maupassant 1880 follow this thread
Where to watch
- Stream Prime Video, HBO Max, The Criterion Channel, Hoopla
- Free Tubi, Pluto TV, YouTube, Amazon Freevee
- Rent Amazon $1.99, Fandango at Home $2.99, Apple TV $3.99
- Buy Amazon $7.99, Apple TV $14.99, Fandango at Home $14.99
In the US, as of October 12. Prices and services change.
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Stage to LordsburgErnest Haycox

1937

Stage to Lordsburg

Ernest Haycox

Interwar. United States. Written in English.

A Collier's short story about passengers on a stagecoach through hostile country.

What it handed down

To Stagecoach (1939)

Direct source, well documented.

Ford bought Haycox's Collier's story and Dudley Nichols adapted it. The film keeps its premise of a stage carrying a mixed company through Apache country.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch.

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1934

A Witch Shall Be Born

Robert E. Howard

American pulp era. United States. Written in English.

A witch impersonates her twin sister, the queen of Khauran; Conan, captain of the guard, is crucified in the desert and survives by biting a vulture to death.

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Direct source, well documented.

The crucifixion on the Tree of Woe, where Conan bites the neck of a vulture that lands on him, is lifted from this story. The film's rescue of the dying Conan by companions repeats Howard's scene in which Olgerd's riders cut him down.
Where it came from
- The Phoenix on the Sword, Robert E. Howard 1932 follow this thread
- Gospel of Mark, Anonymous c. 70 follow this thread
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1934

Queen of the Black Coast

Robert E. Howard

American pulp era. United States. Written in English.

Conan becomes the lover and fellow raider of the pirate queen Bêlit, who dies in a ruined jungle city and returns from death to save him.

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Direct source, well documented.

Valeria is modeled on the pirate queen Bêlit: a fighting woman who becomes Conan's lover, dies, and returns from beyond death to save him in battle, as Bêlit had vowed she would. Conan's speech about Crom, a god who gives men courage and nothing else, is drawn from his talk with Bêlit, and Valeria's funeral pyre answers Bêlit's burning ship.
Where it came from
- The Tower of the Elephant, Robert E. Howard 1933 follow this thread
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1933

The Tower of the Elephant

Robert E. Howard

American pulp era. United States. Written in English.

A young Conan, working as a thief, breaks into a sorcerer's tower to steal a jewel and finds an enslaved alien being from another star.

What it handed down

To Queen of the Black Coast (1934)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Tower fixed the young Conan as a wandering barbarian thief moving through corrupt cities, the outlaw Howard carried into Queen of the Black Coast when Conan turns pirate. The film's own middle section, a theft from a serpent tower with a giant snake guarding it, draws on Tower and reaches the film through this phase of Howard's cycle.
Where it came from
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1932

The Phoenix on the Sword

Robert E. Howard

American pulp era. United States. Written in English.

The first published Conan story (Weird Tales, December 1932), in which King Conan of Aquilonia fights off assassins and a demon summoned by the Set-worshipper Thoth-Amon.

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Direct source, well documented.

The film's opening narration, 'Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis...', is taken from the 'Nemedian Chronicles' epigraph that heads this story. The serpent god Set, whose cult Thulsa Doom leads in the film, entered the Conan stories here through Thoth-Amon.

To A Witch Shall Be Born (1934)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Both stories turn on palace intrigue in a Hyborian kingdom, with sorcery used to seize a throne and Conan as the soldier who sets it right. Witch reuses the court-and-usurper setup that Phoenix had built.

To The Tower of the Elephant (1933)

Structural model, well documented.

Phoenix established the Hyborian world, its kingdoms and its sorcerers, and Conan as a Cimmerian. Tower set an earlier episode of his life inside that world.
Where it came from
- The Shadow Kingdom, Robert E. Howard 1929 follow this thread
- The Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE follow this thread
- Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Ignatius Donnelly 1882 follow this thread
- Histories, Herodotus c. 430 BCE follow this thread
- A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 follow this thread
Find “The Phoenix on the Sword” on Amazon
1929

The Shadow Kingdom

Robert E. Howard

American pulp era. United States. Written in English.

The first Kull story: an Atlantean barbarian who has become king of Valusia uncovers shape-shifting serpent-men hidden in his court.

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

Direct source, well documented.

Phoenix was Howard's rewrite of a rejected Kull story, and the Kull cycle that began with The Shadow Kingdom supplied the barbarian-become-king template. The Shadow Kingdom's serpent-men who take human form are also the ancestors of the film's Thulsa Doom, who turns into a snake.
Where it came from
- Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Ignatius Donnelly 1882 follow this thread
Find “The Shadow Kingdom” on Amazon
1928

The Call of Cthulhu

H. P. Lovecraft

American pulp era. United States. Written in English.

A story about a cult worshipping a vast alien being asleep beneath the Pacific.

What it handed down

To The Tower of the Elephant (1933)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Howard corresponded with Lovecraft from 1930. Yag-kosha, the elephant-headed being from the far star Yag who came to earth in prehistoric times, is a Lovecraftian cosmic alien, and critics read the story as Howard's tribute to Lovecraft's mythos.
Where it came from
- The Gods of Pegāna, Lord Dunsany 1905 follow this thread
- The Kraken, Alfred Tennyson 1830 follow this thread
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1912

A Princess of Mars

Edgar Rice Burroughs

American pulp era. United States. Written in English.

First serialized as 'Under the Moons of Mars'; a Confederate veteran is transported to Mars and wins a princess by the sword.

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Howard read Burroughs and wrote his own Barsoom-style tale, Almuric. Burroughs's sword-fighting hero who rises to power in an invented pre-modern world is part of the pulp background for Conan.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch; Burroughs's own sources not followed here.

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The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the JewellerLord Dunsany

1912

The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller

Lord Dunsany

Edwardian. Ireland. Written in English.

A story from The Book of Wonder in which a master thief steals a great gem from a spider-idol's temple and meets a grim end.

What it handed down

To The Tower of the Elephant (1933)

Disputed link, probable.

Dunsany's tale of a thief who steals a great jewel from a guarded temple and is destroyed by its spider-god has been proposed as a model for Conan's theft of the Heart of the Elephant. Howard admired Dunsany, but no direct statement of this debt is known.
Where it came from
- The Gods of Pegāna, Lord Dunsany 1905 follow this thread
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1905

The Gods of Pegāna

Lord Dunsany

Edwardian. Ireland. Written in English.

Dunsany's first book, an invented scripture of gods and prophets.

What it handed down

To The Call of Cthulhu (1928)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Lovecraft read Dunsany in 1919 and called him a decisive influence. Dunsany's invented pantheon of indifferent gods shaped Lovecraft's own made-up cosmic deities and their cults.

To The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller (1912)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Dunsany carried the cadences and invented gods of Pegāna into the shorter, ironic tales of The Book of Wonder. Thangobrind's spider-idol Hlo-hlo belongs to the same imaginary religion-making.
Where it came from
- The Bible (King James Version), Anonymous 1611 follow this thread
Find “The Gods of Pegāna” on Amazon
1889

Twilight of the Idols

Friedrich Nietzsche

Late 19th century. Germany. Written in German.

A short polemical book of aphorisms attacking Socratic rationalism and Christian morality.

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Direct source, well documented.

The film opens on the epigraph 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger,' credited to Nietzsche, from the 'Maxims and Arrows' section of this book. Milius made the line the frame for Conan's survival of slavery and the crucifixion.
Where it came from
- Odes, Horace 23 BCE follow this thread
- The Conspiracy of Catiline, Sallust c. 42 BCE follow this thread
- History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides c. 400 BCE follow this thread
Find “Twilight of the Idols” on Amazon
1882

Atlantis: The Antediluvian World

Ignatius Donnelly

Gilded Age. United States. Written in English.

A popular pseudo-historical treatise arguing that Plato's Atlantis was real and was the source of all ancient civilizations.

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The epigraph's age 'when the oceans drank Atlantis' assumes Donnelly's picture of a real Atlantis whose drowning scattered survivors who founded later peoples. Howard's Hyborian Age essay elaborates the same scheme.

To The Shadow Kingdom (1929)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Kull is an Atlantean living before the sinking of Atlantis, in a lost antediluvian age of the kind Donnelly popularized. Howard built his prehistory from this kind of speculative history.
Where it came from
- Critias, Plato c. 360 BCE follow this thread
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1880

Boule de Suif

Guy de Maupassant

French Naturalism. France. Written in French.

Respectable travelers in a coach during the Franco-Prussian War exploit and then shun a prostitute traveling with them.

What it handed down

To Stagecoach (1939)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Ford and Nichols acknowledged Maupassant's story as a model for the characters. The respectable passengers who scorn a prostitute in the coach became the townspeople who shun Dallas.

Where it came from

The line stops here: maupassant's debts to Flaubert are not followed here.

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The KrakenAlfred Tennyson

1830

The Kraken

Alfred Tennyson

Romantic. England. Written in English.

An irregular sonnet about a sea monster sleeping in the abyss until the last days.

What it handed down

To The Call of Cthulhu (1928)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Tennyson's monster sleeping in the deep until the end of the world is often cited as a forerunner of Cthulhu, who lies dead but dreaming in sunken R'lyeh. The image of an ancient being asleep under the sea is the shared core.

Where it came from

The line stops here: tennyson's sources lie in Scandinavian sea-monster lore and natural history, not followed here.

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The BibleAnonymous

1611

The Bible (King James Version)

Anonymous

Jacobean. England. Written in English.

The English translation of the Bible made under James I.

What it handed down

To The Gods of Pegāna (1905)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Dunsany said his prose style came from the King James Bible he read as a child. Pegāna imitates its parallel clauses, 'and' openings and prophetic tone.

Where it came from

The line stops here: a translation of Hebrew and Greek scripture; its descent through earlier English versions is not followed here.

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c. 70

Gospel of Mark

Anonymous

Early Christianity. Roman Empire. Written in Koine Greek.

The earliest gospel, ending in the crucifixion and empty tomb of Jesus.

What it handed down

To A Witch Shall Be Born (1934)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Howard stages Conan's punishment as a Roman-style crucifixion outside the city walls, with mockery from his enemy, a slow death in the heat and a rescue that brings him back to life. The scene borrows the shape of the gospel Passion, though Howard made no stated reference.
Where it came from
- Psalms, Anonymous c. 500 BCE follow this thread
Find “Gospel of Mark” on Amazon
23 BCE

Odes

Horace

Augustan Rome. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

Four books of lyric poems adapting Greek meters to Latin.

What it handed down

To Twilight of the Idols (1889)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Nietzsche writes that no poet gave him the same artistic delight as a Horatian ode, praising its 'mosaic of words' in which every word radiates force. He held this up as the model of concentrated expression.
Where it came from
- Poems of Alcaeus, Alcaeus of Mytilene c. 600 BCE follow this thread
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The Conspiracy of CatilineSallust

c. 42 BCE

The Conspiracy of Catiline

Sallust

Late Roman Republic. Rome. Written in Latin.

A short, compressed monograph on Catiline's plot against the Roman Republic.

What it handed down

To Twilight of the Idols (1889)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

In the same chapter Nietzsche says his sense of style awoke on contact with Sallust, 'compact, severe, with as much substance as possible.' The aphoristic compression of Twilight is the result he claims.
Where it came from
- History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides c. 400 BCE follow this thread
Find “The Conspiracy of Catiline” on Amazon
CritiasPlato

c. 360 BCE

Critias

Plato

Classical Greece. Athens. Written in Ancient Greek.

An unfinished dialogue describing the island empire of Atlantis, its wealth and its war against ancient Athens.

What it handed down

To Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882)

Direct source, well documented.

Donnelly's book opens by reprinting and defending Plato's account of Atlantis in the Timaeus and Critias as literal history. His whole argument is built on Plato's description.
Where it came from
- The Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE follow this thread
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c. 400 BCE

History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Classical Greece. Athens. Written in Ancient Greek.

An account of the war between Athens and Sparta that treats power, fear and interest as the motors of politics.

What it handed down

To Twilight of the Idols (1889)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

In 'What I Owe to the Ancients' Nietzsche names Thucydides as his cure for Platonism, praising his realism about power. This hard view of strength and suffering runs through the book's maxims.

To The Conspiracy of Catiline (c. 42 BCE)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Sallust took Thucydides as his model, imitating his compression, speeches and moral analysis of political decline. Ancient critics already compared the two.
Where it came from
- Histories, Herodotus c. 430 BCE follow this thread
- The Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
Find “History of the Peloponnesian War” on Amazon
c. 430 BCE

Histories

Herodotus

Classical Greece. Classical Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

An inquiry into the Persian Wars that ranges over the peoples of the known world, including the Cimmerians driven out by the Scythians.

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Herodotus records the historical Cimmerians driven from the steppe by the Scythians. Howard's Hyborian Age pseudo-history makes Cimmerians the ancestors of later peoples, drawing on this classical account.

To History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 400 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

Thucydides wrote a war history in the form Herodotus had created. He also defined his own method against Herodotus's storytelling, promising accuracy over entertainment.
Where it came from
- The Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
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c. 500 BCE

Psalms

Anonymous

Persian period. Judah. Written in Hebrew.

The Hebrew Bible's collection of 150 hymns, laments and prayers.

What it handed down

To Gospel of Mark (c. 70)

Direct source, well documented.

Mark's crucifixion narrative is built on Psalm 22: Jesus' cry 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' quotes its first line, and the dividing of his garments echoes its verse 18.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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Poems of AlcaeusAlcaeus of Mytilene

c. 600 BCE

Poems of Alcaeus

Alcaeus of Mytilene

Archaic Greece. Lesbos. Written in Ancient Greek.

Fragmentary lyric poems on war, politics and drinking, the source of the Alcaic stanza.

What it handed down

To Odes (23 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

Horace claimed to be the first to bring Aeolian song into Latin. He took the Alcaic stanza from Alcaeus and opened several odes by translating or adapting his lines.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 725 BCE

The Odyssey

Homer

Archaic Greece. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

The epic of Odysseus' ten-year voyage home from Troy, including his visit to the dark land of the Cimmerians at the edge of the world.

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

Direct source, probable.

Homer's Cimmerians, who live in mist and darkness at the edge of the world in Book 11, gave Howard the name of Conan's people. Howard's gloomy, cloud-covered Cimmeria keeps Homer's image.

To Critias (c. 360 BCE)

Disputed link, conjectural.

Scholars have compared Plato's Atlantis, an island of rich palaces, harbors and a sea-god founder, with Homer's Phaeacian island of Scheria. Whether Plato modeled it on Homer is not settled.
Where it came from
- The Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
Find “The Odyssey” on Amazon
c. 750 BCE

The Iliad

Homer

Archaic Greece. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

The epic of Achilles' wrath during the Trojan War.

What it handed down

To History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 400 BCE)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Thucydides' opening 'Archaeology' uses the Trojan War as evidence for early Greek power and supplies. It measures his own war against Homer's.

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Herodotus frames his history as an account of great deeds and the causes of war between Greeks and Asians, a Homeric subject. In Book 2 he argues with Homer's version of Helen and Troy.

To The Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The Odyssey assumes the story of the Iliad and continues it through the homecoming of one of its heroes. Its flashbacks retell events from Troy.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

Find “The Iliad” on Amazon

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Seven Samurai (1954)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Stagecoach (1939)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Queen of the Black Coast (1934)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

To A Witch Shall Be Born (1934)

To The Tower of the Elephant (1933)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Tower of the Elephant (1933)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Tower of the Elephant (1933)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Call of Cthulhu (1928)

To The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller (1912)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

To The Shadow Kingdom (1929)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Stagecoach (1939)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Call of Cthulhu (1928)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Gods of Pegāna (1905)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To A Witch Shall Be Born (1934)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Twilight of the Idols (1889)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Twilight of the Idols (1889)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Twilight of the Idols (1889)

To The Conspiracy of Catiline (c. 42 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)

To History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 400 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Gospel of Mark (c. 70)

Where it came from

What it handed down