"Elissa, or the Doom of Zimbabwe":
This starts with the arrival (in about 1,000 BC) in the Phoenician gold-mining and trading town of Zimboe (Zimbabwe) of a caravan from Tyre, led by its captain, Metem the Phoenician, and Prince Aziel, grandson of Solomon (and who is also related to the Pharaoh). They arrive in time to overhear Elissa, daughter of Sakon, the Governor of Zimbabwe, praying in a sacred grove, in her capacity as a priestess of Baaltis. She is set upon by a black, who tries to kidnap her, but she is rescued by Prince Aziel.
Once in the town it is discovered that the would-be kidnapper was a cousin of King Ithobal, who was half-Phoenician, half black, and who wanted to marry Elissa so that he could become ruler of Zimbabwe. He already ruled the assorted tribes in whose lands Zimbabwe was situated. He has given an ultimatum that unless Elissa is given to him he will attack the city. In fact, he intends to do this anyway, because of the jealousy felt by the blacks at the presence of the Phoenicians. Zimboe has always paid Ithobal tribute, but they also enslave the local tribesmen to work in the goldmines, and look down upon the blacks as inferior. Elissa had already refused Ithobal, and Sakon was reluctant to force her to marry him against her will. She is now doubly reluctant, as she and Aziel fall in love.
Issachar the Levite, the Hebrew prophet accompanying Aziel to keep an eye on him on behalf of Solomon, prophesies that Aziel must have nothing to do with Elissa, or he will be is danger - both physical and spiritual. He conspires with Metem to keep Aziel and Elissa apart, initially by arranging for Aziel to see a Baal infant sacrifice (Aziel wasn't as bigoted as Issachar, but would not be too happy at Elissa's involvement). Issachar himself prevents the sacrifice (for an infant sacrifice you have to read "Wisdom's Daughter" - though there are passing references to such practices in "Montezuma's Daughter"). Unfortunately, not only does Elissa deny any involvement with human sacrifice of any sort, but she renounces her worship of Baaltis, having now discovered all its secrets.
In return for much gold, Metem schemes with Ithobal to prevent Elissa marrying Aziel. He makes a similar arrangement with Issachar. Being a typical Phoenician, he will do anything for money. Metem achieves his aim by arranging - through the use of extensive bribery - that Aziel is elected Baaltis, or high priestess of Baaltis, on the death of the previous incumbent. She can marry whomsoever she chooses - provided they are prepared to sacrifice to Baaltis and El. To be found in the company of any man not her husband would mean death to both. Aziel decides the only escape is to flee back to Tyre, since he cannot now marry Elissa without being an apostate - or at the least being guilty of blasphemy. Elissa has already reconciled herself to her inevitable death by one means or another, and most of the city think themselves doomed also.
Aziel and Elissa foolishly meet to say goodbye, and the daughter of the previous Baaltis, furious that she didn't get the job, spies on them. Elissa decides to flee with Aziel and Issachar, but they are captured, and will be thrown from the top of the temple. The priests do not particularly want to execute Elissa or Aziel, so decide that both will be allowed to live if Elissa (the Baaltis) chooses Aziel to be her husband. She does so, but then, of course, it is pointed out that Aziel must sacrifice to Baaltis by throwing a little grain on the sacrificial fire. Initially, at the urging of Issachar, he refuses, but finally gives in (and almost immediately thereafter dreams of demons and other unpleasant things).
Issachar, also threatened with death because he too was caught in the company of Elissa, has no such escape clause - but the Phoenicians are inclined to be generous, so allow him to go free if he will sacrifice to Baaltis. He says he will (at which they rejoice because they think this shows the victory of Baal over the Hebrew God), but then throws the image of the goddess Baaltis into the fire, and casts himself from the top of the Tower, having first prophesised the destruction of the city because of its idolatry. This end was not, perhaps, difficult to foresee, given that it is already surrounded by King Ithobal's army.
The city elders - including Sakon (who can see no alternative) - decide to hand Elissa over to Ithobal anyyway, in the hope that it will at least delay the inevitable war, at least long enough so that they can get reinforcements from the King of Tyre (who is their suzerain). But Elissa takes refuge in the tomb of the high priestesses, where she has hidden some food. Aziel stays to help defend the city, since there is not much else he can do. Ithobal attacks with his 100,000 strong army, and takes the city, despite the efforts of Aziel, because the Phoenicians aren't very good fighters (they preferred making money) and because their native levies weren't reliable - they were slaves.
The surviving defenders of the city retire to the citadel, but Aziel is cut off (since he lingers to push down one last siege ladder) and captured with his small bodyguard. Ithobal threatens to kill Aziel unless she surrenders to him. He has a novel device involving rope, a crystal burning glass, a wooden cage and a precipice, which he kindly demonstrates to Aziel and Elissa, using one of the bodyguard as a guinea pig. She agrees, but when Aziel is safely on the road she throws herself from the top of the tomb to the road below, and is killed. Aziel shoot Ithobal, and Aziel, Metem, and their surviving followers ride off down the road to the coast (Ithobal's army, and his immediate followers, are too busy pillaging the city to stop them). The party observe the burning city as they pass.
One commentator remarked on the book being based on the idea that the city was doomed because of its unpleasant religious practices, and its oppressive native policy. The former I'm probably inclined to agree with, as he portrays the practise of child sacrifice with the indignation which might be expected of a Victorian gentleman. I suspect that a modern writer would show less abhorance, so hardened are we to unpleasantry today. But I'm not sure about the latter. Although the Phoenicians of Zimboe did use slaves, so did everyone else at this time, nor did Haggard go to any trouble to suggest that they were necessarily pursuing bad policies in this respect. If he was objecting to slavery in principle it might have been through deriving some parallels between the much later Arab slave-traders and the practises of the Semitic Phoenicians. The problem the city faced was really one of numbers - there were simply insufficient Phoenicians to hold the city - and their mercenary nature and love of money, which weakened their martial spirit (a fairly common theme for him). The love of money was the root of evil here.
Although Haggard may have been wrong in assuming that the Zimbabwe ruins were the remains of ancient Phoenician mining colonies, this theory of the origins of the ruins was as good as any at the time. It is interesting that Haggard himself described these ruins in "King Solomon's Mines" before they had actually been discovered! I use the term discovered deliberately, for the contemporary negro population of the country around the ruins were quite incapable of even having built them, and they were probable the product of a more civilised African tribe, though the involvement of Pheonicians or other "white" races cannot be absolutely ruled out. Clearly the builders had long since disappeared or been reduced to barbarism before European explorers entered what became Rhodesia. The tribes which control the country now are currently in the course of reducing that once a properous land to an even lower level of barbarism, in a manner which nicely parallels the decline that the "victory" by Ithobal will bring to the surviving people of Zimboe.