The Sisters — Volume 1

The narrative recreates life in the Serapeum through the experiences of two sisters, Klea and Irene, raised as wards within the temple precincts, and shows how ritual devotion and communal seclusion shaped daily life. Grounded in surviving petitions and antiquarian research, it presents the temple as a setting where monastic impulses emerge alongside Greek and Egyptian religious practice. Courtly and political tensions — notably the rivalry of rival brothers who vie for power and the interventions of Roman and palace figures — intrude upon the sanctuary, affecting the sisters and learned communities, displacing scholars, and exposing conflicts between private piety and public authority.