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Every author who's ever been lambasted for inserting random apostrophes into names deserves an apology when Flaubert did it first.
Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, La bataille du Macar, ca. 1900
Reading this is like finding the missing link between antiquity and dark fantasy that you never even imagined existed (Flaubert based the story largely on Polybius' Histories, and Clark Ashton Smith and Fritz Leiber were both confirmed fans of Salammbo). There's no actual magic, but it's a world where everyone 100% believes in the existence of gods, curses, and magic artifacts. An extremely bloody story, with gory battles, sieges, crucifixion, cannibalism, and another C phrase that Carthage has famously been accused of practising. If you know you know, but if you don't, you should really read Salammbo.
Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, Carthage en joie, ca. 1900
The atmosphere is like one of those old orientalist paintings, where every woman is covered head to toe in veils, golden chains, jewels, every man has a weapon at his side and finely embroidered robes, shirtless slaves carry big fans, and there's a heavy mist of incense floating around. Flaubert crams every single description with as many strange and exotic details as the mind's eye can support, and to a large extent it really seems like the descriptions are the point of the whole exercise. A segment where Hamilcar has his accountant-slave walk him through his vast stores of wealth (including a doubly-hidden vault of priceless treasures) is longer than several individual chapters.
Adolphe Cossard, Salammbô, 1899
It's not like there's no story, but all the dialogue is very brief, and none of the characters are complex. Salammbo herself is somewhat enigmatic, but that doesn't necessarily mean deep. The story is adapted from a real historical event occurring shortly after the first Punic war in the 3rd century B.C., when Carthage refused to pay many of its mercenaries after the loss of the war, and the ensuing rebellion. Most of the characters are based on real people, though Hanno is a conflation of two figures, and Salammbo herself has no name or actions in the historical record. Flaubert claims to have read hundreds of books in his research, visited Tunisia, and spoken with archaeologists investigating the area, and though he clearly cared about having historical basis for his creative decisions, it is a novel first and foremost, rather than authentic history.
Paul Buffet, Le défilé de la Hache, 1894
Unfortunately, all that research doesn't translate into a moving story. Every character seems motivated by at most two (usually one) overpowering drives, barely more cognizant than the animals they use in war. When the mercenaries stop to look at a row of crucified lions, marvelling at the people who live there, I only thought that to a North African villager, a lion probably seems no different than a foreign mercenary. The accumulation of riches by the Carthaginians seems more like the instinctual accumulation of a bower bird than anything else. The expression of hatred and violence sometimes reaches a captivating fever pitch, but the lack of anything identifiable as good in anyone at all hampers the "tragic" ending, and
But any quibbles about the story are nothing in the face of the book's visual impression. This book is an experience to soak in, revel in, and recoil from, only to be drawn back in.
Carl Strathmann, Salambo, 1894
Marie Rochegrosse, 1895
Richard Burgsthal, Le Palais d'Hamilcar, early 20th century
Though seemingly forgotten now, it was apparently quite a sensation at the time, inspiring opera adaptions, paintings (principally of Salammbo, especially the scene where she communes with her sacred python in the nude), sculptures, and even a full-size replica of the veil of the goddess Tanit, which fills the role of a macguffin in the story.
Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, La bataille du Macar, ca. 1900
Reading this is like finding the missing link between antiquity and dark fantasy that you never even imagined existed (Flaubert based the story largely on Polybius' Histories, and Clark Ashton Smith and Fritz Leiber were both confirmed fans of Salammbo). There's no actual magic, but it's a world where everyone 100% believes in the existence of gods, curses, and magic artifacts. An extremely bloody story, with gory battles, sieges, crucifixion, cannibalism, and another C phrase that Carthage has famously been accused of practising. If you know you know, but if you don't, you should really read Salammbo.
Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, Carthage en joie, ca. 1900
The atmosphere is like one of those old orientalist paintings, where every woman is covered head to toe in veils, golden chains, jewels, every man has a weapon at his side and finely embroidered robes, shirtless slaves carry big fans, and there's a heavy mist of incense floating around. Flaubert crams every single description with as many strange and exotic details as the mind's eye can support, and to a large extent it really seems like the descriptions are the point of the whole exercise. A segment where Hamilcar has his accountant-slave walk him through his vast stores of wealth (including a doubly-hidden vault of priceless treasures) is longer than several individual chapters.
Adolphe Cossard, Salammbô, 1899
It's not like there's no story, but all the dialogue is very brief, and none of the characters are complex. Salammbo herself is somewhat enigmatic, but that doesn't necessarily mean deep. The story is adapted from a real historical event occurring shortly after the first Punic war in the 3rd century B.C., when Carthage refused to pay many of its mercenaries after the loss of the war, and the ensuing rebellion. Most of the characters are based on real people, though Hanno is a conflation of two figures, and Salammbo herself has no name or actions in the historical record. Flaubert claims to have read hundreds of books in his research, visited Tunisia, and spoken with archaeologists investigating the area, and though he clearly cared about having historical basis for his creative decisions, it is a novel first and foremost, rather than authentic history.
Paul Buffet, Le défilé de la Hache, 1894
Unfortunately, all that research doesn't translate into a moving story. Every character seems motivated by at most two (usually one) overpowering drives, barely more cognizant than the animals they use in war. When the mercenaries stop to look at a row of crucified lions, marvelling at the people who live there, I only thought that to a North African villager, a lion probably seems no different than a foreign mercenary. The accumulation of riches by the Carthaginians seems more like the instinctual accumulation of a bower bird than anything else. The expression of hatred and violence sometimes reaches a captivating fever pitch, but the lack of anything identifiable as good in anyone at all hampers the "tragic" ending, and
Spoiler
the identification of Salammbo with the spirit of Carthage, fainting dead away at the end, is too on the nose for me (Carthage would be completely destroyed less than a hundred years later). Perhaps if I cared at all about her, or people's fate.But any quibbles about the story are nothing in the face of the book's visual impression. This book is an experience to soak in, revel in, and recoil from, only to be drawn back in.
Carl Strathmann, Salambo, 1894
Marie Rochegrosse, 1895
Richard Burgsthal, Le Palais d'Hamilcar, early 20th century
Though seemingly forgotten now, it was apparently quite a sensation at the time, inspiring opera adaptions, paintings (principally of Salammbo, especially the scene where she communes with her sacred python in the nude), sculptures, and even a full-size replica of the veil of the goddess Tanit, which fills the role of a macguffin in the story.