SOURCE: Kropp, Sonja Dams. “Language Dynamics: The Carthaginian Exploitation of the Mercenaries in Flaubert's Salammbô.” Dalhousie French Studies 53 (winter 2000): 42-8.

In the following essay, Kropp emphasizes how Carthaginian leaders manipulate the Barbarians by exploiting their naïve “belief in the transparency of language.”

In 1862, following five years of extensive study of documentary evidence and two trips to the Orient, Flaubert published his second novel, Salammbô. The story, set in the ancient Punic universe around 240-238 B.C., is based on an account in Polybius. It recounts the war between Carthage and its mercenaries who, after returning from their battle with Rome, are denied their wages. In the end, the hired soldiers are annihilated by their Punic general, Hamilcar. Parallel with the depiction of this war runs “the story of attraction” between Salammbô—daughter of Hamilcar—and Mâtho, a Libyan commander.

Initially, Flaubert had intended to introduce his...