Chapter I THE FEAST It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in the gardens of Hamilcar. The soldiers whom he had commanded in Sicily were having a great feast to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Eryx, and as the master was away, and they were numerous, they ate and drank with perfect freedom. The captains, who wore bronze cothurni, had placed themselves in the central path, beneath a gold-fringed purple awning, which reached from the wall of the stables to the first terrace of the palace; the common soldiers were scattered beneath the trees, where numerous flat-roofed buildings might be seen, wine-presses, cellars, storehouses, bakeries, and arsenals, with a court for elephants, dens for wild beasts, and a prison for slaves. Fig-trees surrounded the kitchens; a wood of sycamores stretched away to meet masses of verdure, where the pomegranate shone amid the white tufts of the cotton-plant; vines, grape-laden, grew up into the branches of the pines; a field of roses bloomed beneath the plane-trees; here and there lilies rocked upon the turf; the paths were strewn with black sand mingled with powdered coral, and in the centre the avenue of cypress formed, as it were, a double colonnade of green obelisks from one extremity to the other. Far in the background stood the palace, built of yellow mottled Numidian marble, broad courses supporting its four terraced stories. With its large, straight, ebony staircase, bearing the prow of a vanquished galley at the corners of every step, its red doors quartered with black crosses, its brass gratings protecting it from scorpions below, and its trellises of gilded rods closing the apertures above, it seemed to the soldiers in its haughty opulence as solemn and impenetrable as the face of Hamilcar. The Council had appointed his house for the holding of this feast; the convalescents lying in the temple of Eschmoun had set out at daybreak and dragged themselves thither on their crutches. Every minute others were arriving. They poured in ceaselessly by every path like torrents rushing into a lake; through the trees the slaves of the kitchens might be seen running scared and half-naked; the gazelles fled bleating on the lawns; the sun was setting, and the perfume of citron trees rendered the exhalation from the perspiring crowd heavier still.

Salammbô is a historical novel about a priestess and the daughter of Hamilcar Barca, an aristocratic Carthaginian general. Salammbô is the object of the obsessive lust of Matho, a leader of the mercenaries. With the help of the scheming freed slave, Spendius, Matho steals the sacred veil of Carthage, the Zaïmph, prompting Salammbô to enter the mercenaries' camp in an attempt to steal it back. The Zaïmph is an ornate bejewelled veil draped about the statue of the goddess Tanit in the sanctum sanctorum of her temple: the veil is the city's guardian and touching it will bring death to the perpetrator. The novel is set in Carthage during the 3rd century BC, immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt which took place shortly after the First Punic War. Flaubert's main source was Book I of Polybius's Histories. It required a great deal of work from the author, who enthusiastically left behind the realism of his masterpiece Madame Bovary for this tale of blood and thunder. The book, which Flaubert researched painstakingly, is largely an exercise in sensuous and violent exoticism. It was another best-seller and sealed his reputation. The Carthaginian costumes described in it even left traces on the fashions of the time. Nevertheless, in spite of its classic status in France, it is not widely known today among English speakers. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was an influential French writer who was perhaps the leading exponent of literary realism of his country. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary and for his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert.

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. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Using contemporary theories of semiology, Professor Mullen Hohl offers a detailed analysis of exoticism in Flaubert's masterpiece. A pervasive schema of multiplicity and mutilation gives the novel its fundamental structure, rather than the previously accepted dichotomy based upon the dialectical opposition of moon and sun. In this manner Flaubert created metonymic correspondences, shared identities, and equivalences between certain characters and mythological gods of the ancient Mediterranean world--most importantly Adonis. Language and religion are seen as instruments of obfuscation and ambiguity. "Hohl thus offers a powerful challenge to the conventional reading of Salammbo as a series of dialectical oppositions between mail and female, sun and moon, civilized and barbarian." --Stirling Haig, French Review.

This carefully crafted ebook: "Salammbô (Historical Novel)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Salammbô is a historical novel about a priestess and the daughter of Hamilcar Barca, an aristocratic Carthaginian general. Salammbô is the object of the obsessive lust of Matho, a leader of the mercenaries. With the help of the scheming freed slave, Spendius, Matho steals the sacred veil of Carthage, the Zaïmph, prompting Salammbô to enter the mercenaries' camp in an attempt to steal it back. The Zaïmph is an ornate bejewelled veil draped about the statue of the goddess Tanit in the sanctum sanctorum of her temple: the veil is the city's guardian and touching it will bring death to the perpetrator. The novel is set in Carthage during the 3rd century BC, immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt which took place shortly after the First Punic War. Flaubert's main source was Book I of Polybius's Histories. It required a great deal of work from the author, who enthusiastically left behind the realism of his masterpiece Madame Bovary for this tale of blood and thunder. The book, which Flaubert researched painstakingly, is largely an exercise in sensuous and violent exoticism. It was another best-seller and sealed his reputation. The Carthaginian costumes described in it even left traces on the fashions of the time. Nevertheless, in spite of its classic status in France, it is not widely known today among English speakers. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was an influential French writer who was perhaps the leading exponent of literary realism of his country. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary and for his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert.