every hour seemed to increase the number of men and women crowding
into the Serapeum. The Romans could only suppose that this constantly
growing multitude had been concealed in the secret halls and chambers of
the temple ever since Cynegius had first arrived, and had no idea that
they were still being constantly reinforced.

Karnis, Herse, and Orpheus, among others, had made their way thither
from the timber-yard, down the dry conduit, and an almost incessant
stream of the adherents of the old gods had preceded and followed them.

While Eusebius had been exhorting his congregation in the church of St.
Mark to Christian love towards the idolaters, these had collected in the
temple precincts to the number of about four thousand, all eager for
the struggle. A vast multitude! But the extent of the Serapeum was so
enormous that the mass of people was by no means densely packed on the
roof, in the halls, and in the underground passages and rooms. There was
no crowding anywhere, least of all in the central halls of the temple
itself; indeed, in the great vestibule crowned with a dome which formed
the entrance, in the vast hall next to it, and in the magnificent
hypostyle with a semicircular niche on the furthest side in which stood
the far-famed image of the god, there were only scattered groups of men,
who looked like dwarfs as the eye compared them with the endless rows of
huge columns.

The full blaze of day penetrated nowhere but into the circular
vestibule, which was lighted by openings in the drum of the cupola that
rested on four gigantic columns. In the inner hall there was only dim
twilight; while the hypostyle was quite dark, but for a singularly
contrived shaft of light which produced a most mysterious effect.

The shadows of the great columns in the fore hall, and of the double
colonnade on each side of the hypostyle, lay like bands of crape on
the many-colored pavement; borders, circles, and ellipses of mosaic
diversified the smooth and lucent surface, in which were mirrored the
astrological figures which sparkled in brighter hues on the ceiling,
the trophies of symbols and mythological groups that graced the walls
in tinted high relief, and the statues and Hermes between the columns.
A wreath of lovely forms and colors dazzled the eye with their
multiplicity and profusion, and the heavy atmosphere of incense which
filled the halls was almost suffocating, while the magical and mystical
signs and figures were s