Commonplace Book

'...For by now the night had taken on a magical aspect, neither of daylight nor of darkness, and the Sarapeion was a dream-building which dwelt always in this strange dimension of lamplight that dwarfed the earth and made all-embracing the home of the god. The centre cell was particularly frightening; the lights, the warmth, the unexplained movements of everyone, the awe of the colossal Sarapis with his curly ambrosial locks and beard, all seemed to direct attention towards - or rather to divert it too obviously from - the closed cell before which the fountain clashed its lithe belly-dance, like a bejewelled naked harem-girl, and within which surely lurked some god-ogre for whom the temple with its flame and ritual was the oven steaming the flesh of the chosen victims.'

from Last Days with Cleopatra by Jack Lindsay (First Part, Chapter VI)