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 the city, street by street, soul by soul. Yet, unknown by name to the urban public is a chaste young woman from the humble market town of Pihap-Illyon, sold into slavery and separated from her lover. Between them they share an unenviable destiny which will upend the affairs of the city and its world. For he has been chosen as a martyr in a cause which is not his own, and she is compelled to play the most mortifying role of all, as the Whore of Babylon. M.R.Sunwall is an American living, teaching, and writing abroad. His present appointment is as professor of English and the Social Sciences."