Salammbo: The First Wargame

Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô is an 1862 work of historical fiction, set in Carthage between the Punic Wars.  There are scenes of a temple raid that reads a little like something out of Howards Conan the Barbarian saga, or a Dungeons & Dragons game, scenes of strange exotic ritual centred on the titular priestess of Tanit and vicereal bloodletting, battlefield carnage and baroque siege tactics.  It's very nearly only the use of familiar place-names from Old Earth and lack of overt supernatural special effects that prevent it from being, perhaps, the first fantasy novel.

Also of interest is a brief paragraph that seems to describe a wargame being played in preparation for battle:

"The four chiefs met together every evening in Matho’s tent, and squatting round a shield, attentively moved backwards and forwards the little wooden figures invented by Pyrrhus for the representation of manouvres. Spendius would demonstrate Hamilcar’s resources, and with oaths by all the gods entreat that the opportunity should not be wasted. Matho would walk about angry and gesticulating. The war against Carthage was his own personal affair; he was indignant that the others should interfere in it without being willing to obey him. Autaritus would divine his speech from his countenance and applaud. Narr’ Havas would elevate his chin to mark his disdain; there was not a measure he did not consider fatal; and he had ceased to smile. Sighs would escape him as though he were thrusting back sorrow for an impossible dream, despair for an abortive enterprise."

Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô 1862

Druilette | Salammbô 

While the origins of Chess go back to 6th Century India, Georg Leopold von Reisswitz's Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame formulated in 1812 for King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, is recognised as the first modern wargame, insofar as it attempts to imaginatively simulate warfare,  including practical manoeuvres rather than rely on abstract grid-based tactics as Chess.

The passage in Flaubert's Salammbô appears to be an account of Kriegspiel by a Frenchman some 8 years prior to the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent popularising of von Reisswits Kriegspiel on the international stage. There is some irony in this, as Flauberts house was occupied by the Prussians during the conflict, which presumably had been suggested by military simulation, but I can find no particular evidence of Flaubert's interest in Prussian military matters before this unfortunate turn of events in his letters or biographies to explain the appearance of such a wargame in his novel.

Flauberts imaginary Kriegspiel was not intended to be contemporary, but is rather projected back to The Mercenary War in Carthage, between 240 BC – 238 BC.  Flauberts main historical source for Salammbô was Polybius' Histories (circa 150 BC) specifically Book I, ch. 65–88. It makes no mention of a game being played. Any archeological evidence Flaubert may have drawn upon in order to have Matho, Spendius, Narr'Havas and Autaritus studying strategy and practicing tactical manoeuvres also seems elusive, perhaps the figurines overlooked by archeologists as toys or religious fetishes, or were non-representational, beads or other such items, or simply all destroyed by the Romans when Carthage fell. Certainly Flauberts evocative image of men hunched around a shield suggests a certain level of improvised tabletop action.

Druilette | Salammbô 

Flauberts text plainly attributes the invention of the game to a certain Pyrrhus of Epirus (318–272 BC) the Greek King and General from who we derive the idiom Phyrric victory - that is a victory in which the losses for the victor are greater than the losses of the vanquished. This allusion might certainly explain the despondency of Flauberts game-playing mercenary generals. Unfortunately Pyrrhus writings - treatises on military matters, presumably including his wargaming rules and memoirs are lost to history. However Aelius Donatus (circa. 400AD - 600 years after Carthage fell) observes in his fragmentary, partially reconstructed and incomplete Commentary on the Roman playwright Terence, that Pyrrhus "invented a sort of game, like that of Chess, to represent the different ways of making attacks, and drawing up armies in battles" (according to Symons, Universal History,  1738 - I cannot find a translation of Donatus Commentaries, perhaps a passing Classics scholar might shine a light here), and it may be that Flaubert is following Donatus himself, or other later sources that draw on him in his description of The Pyrrhus Game being played out in Matho’s tent, predating the emergence of Chess in India by some 800 years.

But unless there is a full set of rules buried in Donatus Commentaries, what The Pyrrhus Game was actually like, how Chess-like (abstract) or Kriegspiel-like (simulationist) it was, and if it even existed at all, is anyones guess.