The story of the Numidian queen Sophonisbe (235-203 BCE) naturally commanded the attention of Roman historians, most notably Livy and Appian, given the importance of her role in the second Punic war (218-202 BCE). That role, due to her position as daughter of the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal, was played out through successive marriages to two rival kings of Numidian factions, Syphax and Massinissa, who were both implicated in shifting intrigues and alliances with the invading Romans under the famed general Scipio (later surnamed Africanus). The historians could hardly neglect, moreover, the intensely fraught human dimension of her relations with her husbands, especially Massinissa, who finally fulfilled her wish to facilitate her death rather than face humiliating captivity under Roman rule. The potential for her portrayal as a tragic heroine was further enhanced by the treatment of Petrarch in his Latin epic Africa (c. 1337-43, pub. 1501).

That potential was realised in theatrical form throughout the early modern period, beginning in Italy with the Sofonisba of Giangiorgio Trissino (1515, pub. 1524), which was translated and performed in France in 1556. It was, however, the two turn-of-the century versions composed by Antoine de Montchrestien and Nicolas de Montreux that founded a distinctively French tradition of tragedies continued by Jean Mairet (1634), Pierre Corneille (1663) and Voltaire (pub. 1770).

The works of Montchrestien and Montreux presented here notably add complexity of characterisation and depth of feeling to the story, which they structure in contrasting ways. Montchrestien emphasises the destructive power of love – to the point of introducing a Fury to emblematise its influence. Montreux’s stress is rather on political circumstances, with Sophonisbe emerging – much on the model of Cleopatra in his own tragedy on that subject – as a heroine whose courageous defiance of masculine power puts to shame not only her royal husbands but also the victorious Scipio.