A century after Constantine, Alexandria remains the cultural center of the ancient world. Festooned with erudite scholarship and debauched entertainment, it seems to be a stable cultural world which will last forever. Yet deep spiritual currents are gathering beneath the surface of the sunny Mediterranean cosmopolis. Crypto-pagans plot a restoration of the old order while a militant church party sets its sights on total theocratic control. The great personalities in this conflict, priests and politicians, scholars and entertainers, wage an invisible war of subtlety and sabotage for control of...