 The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 17 March 1606, and published later that year by the bookseller John Windet.The title page of the first edition states that the play was acted at the Blackfriars, with no mention of the company's name — which indicates that the play must have been performed in late 1605 or early 1606, after the Queen's Revels Children has lost royal patronage as a result of the "Eastward Hoe" scandal.The play tells the story of the Carthaginian princess, Sophonisba, who is being lustfully pursued by an unwanted suitor, the lecherous and unscrupulous Syphax, despite her having recently married the noble warrior Massinissa.