The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: the red light of orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of the citadel
were constructed on this wise:--In the centre was a holy temple dedicated
to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by
an enclosure of gold; this was the spot where the family of the ten princes
first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought the fruits of
the earth in their season from all the ten portions, to be an offering to
each of the ten. Here was Poseidon's own temple which was a stadium in
length, and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having
a strange barbaric appearance. All the outside of the temple, with the
exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles
with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously
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