"Hyboria Aquilonians or Aquiromians?" Topic

I just posted some excerpts from Hour of the Dragon which in my opinion is the best argument against Aquilonia being a Roman style society. link

Who said is was? Thanks for the excerpts by the way – need to re-read my Conan books! :-)

Funny, I'm currently re-reading "Hour of the Dragon".

And I've never heard anyone argue that Aquilonia was Roman-like. It might have been in "Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age" that Nemedian Adventurers were described as similar to Legionnaires, but that's certainly not canonical.

Also, in "The God in the Bowl", there are chariots and characters named "Publius" and "Demetrius", but that wasn't set in Aquilonia, either.

No, REH seemed to pick and choose his cultures freely, but the Hyborian armies were very Medieval European.

Well, Garrison 'Aquilands' are basically knights and pikes.
link

i don't see how you can read his works and come away with the thought that the army is based on Romans.

It might have been in "Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age" that Nemedian Adventurers were described as similar to Legionnaires, but that's certainly not canonical.

and not Roman either.

Aquilonia is very "French" in feel

Never imagined them as romans – it's the pikes, archers and knights that made me think otherwise. European and medieval.

Always liked the garisson Hyborians – only £0.85 GBP for foot, £0.83 GBP for those available in "packs" of 10. Bargain! They eventually tagged some Tolkien / D&D figures on the range – do like the dwarves, and have reasonably vast numbers of the elves and orcs/goblins. Also recall that the half-orc (or as garisson had it "man orc") with the axe was the first figure I ever owned where I thought "nah, that's not what they look like".

And also the Minifigs Sword & Sorcery range, which was Conan.

I seem to be rambling – sorry…what were we talking about ?

I always thought of Aquilonia as English, Nemidia as French – though I paint my Nemidians as Teutonic knights…

I think in Tony Bath's Hyborian campaign the Nemedians may have had a Greek flavour.

I seem to recall that Howard was pretty loosey-goosey with his armour descriptions throughout the stories and lacked consistency. Get in the way of a good story, eh wot?!

Royal Armies doesn't describe them as Romans but it continually is depicted as such in both the comics and RPGs.

Here's an Aquiromian from Fantasy Flight's Conan game:

As well as the comic:

Not to mention the RPG:

I'm not sure why but this is how it gets misinterpreted.

Thanks for the link to Garrison Miniatures, I've never seen those before. Any idea size wise what they are compatible with? I'm guessing they are true 25mm?

I dunno, one could make a case for late Roman armies being cavalry reliant rather than infantry reliant, or one could imagine the army being a Macedonian/Successor force with more archers; knights and pikemen does not have to imply late medieval either.

-Will

Size wise the Garrison S&S and Medieval ranges are true 25mm, equivalent in size to Minfigs but cheaper.

The conan.com forum has had a fairly length discussion (or several) matching Hyborian nations to historical counterparts. A few nations are up for debate, but Aquilonia was pretty much late medieval French, with some Swiss pikemen and Welsh bowmen thrown in. I believe Corinthia is more the pseudo-Roman nation.

The old sphere paperbacks I have got show Europe
super-imposed on the map. Aquilonia covers France.
I always thought the names helped a bit , Aquilonia being a bit like Aquitaine.

Aquilonia is what Medieval France would have turned out to be like if there had been no Christianity. The culture of Gaul in late antiquity had been thoroughly Romanized, and most of the inhabitants of Gaul would have identified themselves as "Romans". If this had gone on into the medieval period, without the introduction of Christianity and with the worship of the pagan gods continuing, France would probably have turned out with many people still having Latinised names (like Publius etc.)

The place-names in Aquilonia are generally derived from French place-names. For example, Aquilonia is derived from Aquitania (the Latin version of Aquitaine). Poitain is derived from Poitou (now in the Poitou-Charentes region).