Salammbô

Carthage's struggle-or rather, the struggle of its hired mercenaries-against its enemies in the First Punic War has ended in success. But now the mercenaries are expecting their fee, and Carthage isn't willing or able to cover its debts. Incensed, the mercenaries are easily lead into rebellion by a pair of their own, each of whom have their own reasons to launch an attack. Spendius has escaped from slavery in Carthage and wants nothing more than to land a damaging blow on the mighty city-state, while Matho is besotted with the enigmatic and otherworldly priestess Salammbô.

Flaubert's vision of the Mercenary War is broadly compatible with historical sources, but never allows accuracy to get in the way of a good story. While characters such as Matho, Spendius and Hamilcar existed and are well-documented in sources such as Polybius' Histories, Salammbô as a character, along with her surroundings, allow Flaubert to paint a more sensual view of Carthagian ritual and excess. He also didn't hold back with his descriptions of the intense violence of both the battles and the sacrifices required by the gods.

Salammbô followed the success of Madame Bovary, and marked a departure in style for Flaubert. It was, however, another commercial success, and led to a new appreciation in French society for the novel's setting. The story has been reworked for different media many times over the intervening years, and the character of Salammbô even makes a memorable appearance in the classic film Citizen Kane.

If you enjoy epic historical fiction that brings ancient civilizations to vivid life, Flaubert's masterful portrayal of Carthage's brutal mercenary war will captivate you from start to finish. This sweeping tale of rebellion, betrayal, and the clash between civilizations showcases one of France's greatest literary masters at his most ambitious, delivering both spectacular battle scenes and profound insights into human nature.

The source for this public-domain ebook is Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org). Ebooks from other sources often have typos, inconsistent spelling, missing accent marks, and missing punctuation. Ebooks from Standard Ebooks are proofread line by line against a scan of the original printed pages, then proofread again from cover to cover. They are also formatted and typeset following a professional-grade style manual, resulting in new editions supporting state-of-the-art ereader technology: automatic hyphenation, popup footnotes, complete and consistent metadata, high-resolution and scalable vector graphics, and ereader-compatible tables of contents. All of this makes the finished ebooks accurate, functional, and beautiful, a pleasure to read. (Waking Lion Press is not affiliated with or endorsed by Standard Ebooks.)