of neophytes; on the roof stood various observatories--among them one
erected for the study of the heavens by Eratosthenes, where Claudius
Ptolemaeus had watched and worked. Up here astronomers, star-gazers,
horoscopists and Magians spent their nights, while, far below them, in
the temple-courts that were surrounded by store-houses and stables, the
blood of sacrificed beasts was shed and the entrails of the victims were
examined.

The house of Serapis was a whole world in little, and centuries had
enriched it with wealth, beauty, and the noblest treasures of art and
learning. Magic and witchcraft hedged it in with a maze of mystical and
symbolical secrets, and philosophy had woven a tissue of speculation
round the person of the god. The sanctuary was indeed the centre of
Hellenic culture in the city of Alexander; what marvel then, that the
heathen should believe that with the overthrow of Serapis and his temple,
the earth, nay the universe itself must sink into the abyss?

Anxious spirits and throbbing hearts were those that now sought shelter
in the Serapeum, fully prepared to perish with their god, and yet eager
with enthusiasm to avert his fall if possible.

A strange medley indeed of men and women had collected within these
sacred precincts! Grave sages, philosophers, grammarians,
mathematicians, naturalists, and physicians clung to Olympius and obeyed
him in silence. Rhetoricians with shaven faces, Magians and sorcerers,
whose long beards flowed over robes embroidered with strange figures;
students, dressed after the fashion of their forefathers in the palmy
days of Athens; men of every age, who dubbed themselves artists though
they were no more than imitators of the works of a greater epoch, unhappy
in that no one at this period of indifference to beauty called upon them