The influences behind Conan the Barbarian

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

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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
History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides c. 400 BCE

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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

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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
The Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE

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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

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

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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

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.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Conan the Barbarian (1982)

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)

To The Conspiracy of Catiline (c. 42 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Phoenix on the Sword

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

Where it came from

What it handed down

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

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

To The Odyssey

Where it came from

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