Serapis — Volume 01
Alexandria, 4th century. The great Serapeum still stands, but the old gods are dying. Into this city of crumbling temples and rising churches comes Karnis, a wandering musician who has lost everything to pirates: his home, his livelihood, and perhaps his will to create. With his wife Herse and his daughter Agne, whose voice could once move crowds, he seeks a fresh start. But Alexandria in the age of Bishop Theophilus is no place for pagan performers. An edict forbids young maidens from public stage, and Agne's gift threatens to become her curse. As the family navigates the treacherous waters of religious prohibition and cultural upheaval, they find unlikely allies in the wealthy merchant Porphyrius and his daughter Gorgo. Yet every triumph is shadowed by the knowledge that the world they inhabit is vanishing. Ebers, drawing on his deep knowledge of ancient Egypt, renders a civilization in transformation with cinematic sweep: the smell of papyrus and incense, the sound of the last great philosophers debating in crumbling halls, and the quiet desperation of those whose gods have become illegal.
