Flaubert's "Salammbo"

Can appreciate the research behind it, less so the storyline. Am nibbling from both Salammbo (occasionally finding a good nugget) and Mommsen's Rome.

*

The constitution of the world disquieted him no less than the nature of the gods; he had observed the equinoxes with the armils placed in the portico of Alexandria, and accompanied the bematists of Evergetes, who measure the sky by calculating the number of their steps, as far as Cyrene; so that there was now growing in his thoughts a religion of his own, with no distinct formula, and on that very account full of infatuation and fervor.

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