Chapter 13
The Centurion and the EgyptianAs the days and weeks passed, the colossal statue of Claudius the God began to take shape. Decius Brutus visited the workyard from time to time to monitor the slow transformation of the featureless block into a shape disturbingly like the body of a man.
Staring fascinated one day as the Egyptian’s most skilled apprentice chipped away at what would be the head, he wondered at what moment the inanimate stone would take on the illusion of life. He knew that many people believed statues could hear what was said in their presence, some even believed they could walk and talk. He, in his travels, had seen stones so mimicking life that, rational man as he was, he himself could almost believe this was true.
He had been present once in a Serapeum in Egypt
