Gustave Flaubert 
Salammbo 

Salammbo is a literary work written by Gustave Flaubert and published in 1865. This story is set immediately after the first Punic War. Carthage has weakened and is now not able to keep the promises made to its army of mercenaries and find itself under attack.The fictional title character and the daughter of Hamilcar Barca, a Carthaginian general, 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……