Chronologically Speaking, Part One: "The Phoenix on the Sword" and "The Scarlet Citadel"

Chronologically Speaking is a series I'm starting here focused solely on the chronology of Conan of Cimmeria stories. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'll be examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, but because it's impossible to order a sequence of one, I'll be starting with the first two Conan tales published: "The Phoenix on the Sword" and "The Scarlet Citadel."

The temporal relationship between "The Phoenix on the Sword" and "The Scarlet Citadel" is not as clear as some would like you to think it is.

Appearing in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales, "The Phoenix on the Sword" was the first Conan story published. It's well-documented that this story didn't spring to Howard in fully original form, but that he had a few warm-ups to creating Conan. His "Cimmeria" poem written earlier that year (though not published until 1956) introduced Conan's homeland.  "People of the Dark," published in June 1932 in Strange Tales had introduced a barbarian character named Conan (the Reaver, not the Cimmerian). And "Phoenix on the Sword was cribbed from the unsold King Kull story "By This Axe I Rule!"

---

Though it's dead simple to know where this story takes place in Conan's life, the narrative gives us tons of interesting chronological notes. Conan is obviously older, having lived his barbarian life and is now king of Aquilonia.

• Conan seized the crown of Aquilonia: "Yes. The fat fool claims it by reason of a trace of royal blood. Conan makes a bad mistake in letting men live who still boast descent from the old dynasty, from which he tore the crown of Aquilonia."
• The previous king was named Numedides: "I did not dream far enough, Prospero. When King Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams."
• Conan is established as having come from the barbarian north: "Alone of us all, Rinaldo has no personal ambition. He sees in Conan a red- handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land. He idealizes the king whom Conan killed to get the crown, remembering only that he occasionally patronized the arts, and forgetting the evils of his reign, and he is making the people forget. Already they openly sing The Lament for the King in which Rinaldo lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conan as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss'. Conan laughs, but the people snarl."
• Enough time has passed between Conan overthrowing Numedides and the opening of the narrative for people to have erected a statue to the former king in the Temple of Mitra: "When I overthrew Numedides, then I was the Liberator—now they spit at my shadow. They have put a statue of that swine in the temple of Mitra, and people go and wail before it, hailing it as the holy effigy of a saintly monarch who was done to death by a red-handed barbarian." The conventional wisdom that you may hear on the internet is that "Phoenix" takes place during the first year of his kingship, but there's nothing in the text to get that exact. It has been a minimum of a few months, but could be a year, or even several.
• Conan notes to his advisor Prospero that he has been to Asgard and Vanaheim, which Prospero believes may have been myths. It becomes well-established in the Hyborian Age that faraway countries are usually believed to be legend by those sufficiently distant: "The maps of the court show well the countries of south, east and west, but in the north they are vague and faulty. I am adding the northern lands myself. Here is Cimmeria, where I was born. And—" "Asgard and Vanaheim," Prospero scanned the map. "By Mitra, I had almost believed those countries to have been fabulous."

Clearly, obviously, this story is easy to place. I'm bored just sitting here writing it. So let's compare it to "The Scarlet Citadel." Despite being the second Conan story published, "The Scarlet Citadel" was not the second written, but probably the fourth.

In Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author, Willard Oliver postulates that "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and "The God in the Bowl" were written between the two King Conan stories, but neither of those tales would be published until much later. "The Scarlet Citadel," though, would be published in the January 1933 issue of Weird Tales, just a month behind its predecessor.

---

• Conan is well-known, even his pre-kingship exploits. "In this stress all the veneer of civilization had faded; it was a barbarian who faced his conquerors. Conan was a Cimmerian by birth, one of those fierce moody hillmen who dwelt in their gloomy, cloudy land in the north. His saga, which had led him to the throne of Aquilonia, was the basis of a whole cycle of hero-tales."
  
  • Perhaps this is partially due to the poet Rinaldo, who was mentioned in "Phoenix."
• In one moment in the story, Conan sees visions of the life he has lived thus far, including as a barbarian, a mercenary, a pirate, a captain of armies, and as king: "In swift-moving scenes the pageant of his life passed fleetingly before his mental eye—a panorama wherein moved shadowy figures which were himself, in many guises and conditions—a skin-clad barbarian; a mercenary swordsman in horned helmet and scale-mail corselet; a corsair in a dragon-prowed galley that trailed a crimson wake of blood and pillage along southern coasts; a captain of hosts in burnished steel, on a rearing black charger; a king on a golden throne with the lion banner flowing above, and throngs of gay-hued courtiers and ladies on their knees."
  
  • It is possible that these are presented in chronological order, which would mean that Conan was a barbarian, then a mercenary, followed by a pirate, then a soldier, and finally, as a king. But it firmly places all of these events prior to "Citadel." Looking ahead, we can at least see "Queen of the Black Coast," and "Black Colossus" in which he is explicitly a pirate and a military commander. It's possible that the "captain" line could refer to his time as a hill chieftain in stories like "People of the Black Circle."
• Conan mentions that he first rode into Aquilonia in the service of her armies: "'Setting me adrift where I was when I rode into Aquilonia to take service in her armies, except with the added burden of a traitor's name!' Conan's laugh was like the deep short bark of a timber wolf." Looking ahead, this is likely a reference to his time as a scout in "Beyond the Black River."
• Conan is called "Amra" for the first time, harkening back to "Queen of the Black Coast." "'Long have I wished to meet you, Amra,' the black gave Conan the name—Amra, the Lion—by which the Cimmerian had been known to the Kushites in his piratical days."
  • The character who calls Conan "Amra" also mentions the "sack of Abombi," which I don't believe is an event or a place mentioned in any other Conan stories.
• The previous king of Aquilonia, now (perhaps mistakenly) referred to as Namedides (with an A) is mentioned as having died by strangulation: "'And Namedides?' 'I strangled him on his throne the night I took the royal city,' answered Conan."
• Also potentially a mistake, potentially a future revision, the capital of Aquilonia is referred to as Tamar, where it will be called Tarantia in the future.

I was surprised in my revisiting of these two texts that their temporal placement was not as strong as I remembered. The commonly-accepted chronology is that "Citadel" takes place about a year after "Phoenix," but there's nothing quite so clear in the narratives. I find that it's most likely that "Phoenix" takes place first because there has to have been time for a "whole cycle of hero-tales" to have been written and to become famous, but the one-year difference is not really there. Gary Romeo examines a Conan chronology by P. Schuyler Miller which postulates that "Citadel" takes place right after "Phoenix," perhaps within the same year. "An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian" (found in The Blade of Conan these days) also thinks "Citadel" takes place right afterword. 

If you're only looking at the texts, I don't think it's that clear.

Our final chronology for this post is as follows.

1. The Phoenix on the Sword
​2. The Scarlet Citadel