"Know, O Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars... Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet."
— The Nemedian Chronicles
The Hyborian Age is an essay written by Robert E. Howard in the 1930s, but not published in his lifetime. The essay tells how Atlantis rose and fell, giving rise to the Hyborian Age, and tells part of Conan’s and Kull's life up to the beginning of the period known as the Ancient Age.
Howard's goal was to maintain the consistency of the fictional setting in which he was writing. The essay was published in book form and also by Marvel Comics in the magazines The Savage Sword of Conan and Conan Saga.
The Hyborian Age includes examples of:
- Artistic License – History/Geography: Howard did not explain how some peoples living in Asia or Oceania would emerge.
- It has not been explained how Australian aborigines and New Zealand Maori came into being.
- It is questionable what happened to the Khitai, who were not involved in any conflict before the great cataclysm, but it is speculated that they gave rise to the Chinese, Korean and Japanese peoples.
- The Picts were one of the Celtic ethnic groups, as were the Gaels, Gauls and Bretons, while in the essay it says that the Picts are a separate ethnic group.
- Attack on One Is an Attack on All: When the Hyrkanians tried to invade Cimmeria, all the clans united to expel the invaders and send them back to the east.
- Book Ends: The essay begins with the end of Atlantis and Lemuria which sank after the firt Cataclysm and ends with another cataclysm that transformed the world into the one we know.
- Bullying a Dragon: The Hyrkanians have done this twice.
- Before the Picts destroyed Aquilonia, they tried to invade the latter kingdom, but were driven out.
- After the fall of Aquilonia, they tried to conquer Cimmeria, but were defeated and driven out again.
- The Dog Bites Back: After the first great cataclysm, the Lemurians who succeeded were enslaved further west, a thousand years later, these slaves rose and eliminated their masters, thus founding Stygia.
- Downer Beginning: The essay started with the beginning of the Thurian Age up to the first cataclysm that gave rise to the Hyborians.
- Due to the Dead: Gorm pays tribute to his benefactor Arus with the crest of his killer on his grave.
- The End of the Beginning: The Hyborian Age comes to an end, ushering in the historical Age we know after the second cataclysm.
- Several nations of Hyboria sank, giving way to the seas we know, for example: the Mediterranean Sea, which was before Koth, Ophir, West of Shem and North of Stygia.
- The full-blooded Cimmerians gave rise to the Gaelic Celts, who became Irish and Highland Scotch.
- The full-blooded Vanirs gave rise to the first Danes peoples.
- The Full-blooded Aesir became Achaians, Gauls and Bretons.
- The Cimmerians and the Nordheimers who lived by the Vilayet Sea (now the Caspian Sea) had their blood mixed, giving rise to the Aryans.
- The Cimmerians and the Hyrkanians had their blood mixed, giving rise to the Scythians.
- The Picts involuted into a semi-prehistoric people and moved to Caledonia, with Bran Mak Morn as their last chieftain up to a certain point until they were conquered by the Celts and Romans.
- Vanirs adventurers went to Stygia and there, they freed slaves and became the first pharaohs, the Vanir and Stygian bloods mixed, giving birth to the first Egyptians.
- The Nemedians of the Irish legends were the Nemedian Aesir, who migrated to Ireland after the second cataclysm.
- The Hyrkanians, Picts and Stygians mingled and became the Ertruscans, who inhabit eastern Koth, the ancient Italian peninsula.
- The Sumerians were a mixture of Hyrkanians and Shemite bloods.
- The full-blooded Shemites would become the Arabs and Israelis.
- The Zamorans and the Zingarans who were hosted by the Hyrkanians in the eastern Europe became the Romani people after mixing their races.
- The Hyrkanians would return centuries later as Tartars, Huns, Turks, and Mongols.
- Expy: Robert E. Howard was inspired by real historical facts that led to the end of various peoples and eras.
- Generational Saga: The essay begins with the Pre-Cataclysmic Age (circa 20,000 BC) and ends with the start of Ancient history, that add up to almost 10,000 years.
- Ghost Town: Or nation. Nemedia became so after the nation was invaded by the Aesirs. The Cimmerians arrived later just to take some of what was left. Nemedia would only be inhabited again by the people who would give rise to the Germanic peoples.
- Glacial Apocalypse: It occurred during the glacial period, causing a chain reaction, driving out the Nordheimers who drove out the Cimmerians, causing destruction to the southernmost part.
- Greed: First was the greed of Aquilonia, which made it conquer almost all the neighboring nations, and the second was the greed of Gorm, who conquered Aquilonia, destroying the entire nation and massacring the population.
- False Friend: Gorm for Arus during his youth.
- History Repeats:
- The Lemurians founded Stygia after they rebelled against their masters.
- With the help of the Vanirs, the enslaved Stygians rebelled against their masters and founded Egypt.
- The Horde: A great icy climate that started in the north drove out the Cimmerians and the Nordheimersnote , which devastated everything in its path, making the almost extinct Hyboria permanently dominated by them.
- Irony: Aquilonia, the nation that Conan reigned for thirty years, was the first to fall, and by an uninspired enemy, the Picts.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Years after destroying Aquilonia, Gorm meets his end at the hands of the Norse-Nemedian leader Hialmar, and his empire falls soon after.
- Made a Slave:
- The Lemurians who were fleeing the first great cataclysm tried to take refuge further to the Thuria plague only to be enslaved by the ancient race living there and those who stayed in the east became the Hyrkanians.
- During his old age, Gorm kept naked slave girls who served his meals. All of them were daughters of kings.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Upon realizing what a big mistake he has made, which is trying to convert the Pict savages, Arus regrets learning Gorm's true intentions and he is murdered by a drunken Pict while making his last effort to undo the job.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: This was the fate of Aquilonia at the hands of the Picts, which was reduced to fire and blood.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: After discovering Gorm's plans, Arus would try to convince the pict chief to give up the attack only to be murdered by a drunken pict. Gorm retaliated by murdering the man who killed Arus and placing his head on his friend's grave.
- Time Skip: It occurs many times during the essay.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Arus, a Nemedian priest of Mitra went to the Pictish Wilderness to try to convert the Pictish savages to his religion only to awaken Gorm's greed, leading to the destruction of Aquilonia.
- Aquilonia secretly sent regiments to the Bossorian Marches to eliminate the deserters. The Aquilonian regiments and savage Shemite soldiers annihilated the deserters and the population, leaving Aquilonia ready for the Pictish invasion.
