Salammbo

Salammbo is a historical novel by the French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in French in 1862, set in Carthage immediately before and during the Mercenary War of 241 to 237 BCE. Flaubert drew his primary historical research from the ancient Greek historian Polybius, reconstructing the ancient Carthaginian setting in dense, sensuous detail around its title character, the daughter of the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca. The novel was an immediate popular success on publication, its notoriety amplified by public curiosity following the controversy surrounding Flaubert's previous novel Madame Bovary, and it later became a bestseller in English-speaking countries following Eleanor Marx's 1886 translation, its vivid ancient setting going on to influence contemporary fashion and renewed popular interest in Carthaginian history.