Eines der bedeutendsten Bauwerke der Antike war das Serapeion (der Tempel des Serapis) in Alexandria. Im Jahre 391 u.Z. ist es unter der Führung des Patriarchen Theophilos dermaßen gründlich zerstört worden, daß davon beinahe nichts mehr erhalten ist. Dieses Ereignis war damals eine Sensation und ist heute doch beinahe vergessen.
Einer der erhaltenen Berichte stammt von dem Heiden Eunapios von Sardes in seiner Schrift βίοι σοφιστῶν (472):

Now, not long after, an unmistakable sign was given that there was in him [Antoninus, Sohn der Sosipatra und des Eusthatius] some diviner element. For no sooner had he left the world of men than the cult of the temples in Alexandria and at the shrine of Serapis was scattered to the winds, and not only the ceremonies of the cult but the buildings as well, and everything happened as in the myths of the poets when the Giants gained the upper hand.

The temples at Canobus also suffered the same fate in the reign of Theodosius, when Theophilus presided over the abominable ones like a sort of Eurymedon

ὅς ποθ’ ὑπερθύμοισι Γιγάντεσσιν βασίλευεν
Who ruled over the proud Giants

and Evagrios was prefect of the city, and Romanus in command of the legions in Egypt.
For these men, girding themselves in their wrath against our sacred places as though against stones and stone-masons, made a raid on the temples, and though they could not allege even a rumour of war to justify them, they demolished the temple of Serapis and made war against the temple offerings, whereby they won a victory without meeting a foe or fighting a battle. In this fashion they fought so honourably against the statues and votive offerings that they not only con-quered but stole them as well, and their only military tactics were to ensure that the thief should escape detection.

Only the floor of the temple of Serapis they did not take, simply because of the weight of the stones which were not easy to move from their place. Then these warlike and honourable men, after they had thrown everything into confu-sion and disorder and had thrust out hands, unstained indeed by blood but not pure from greed, boasted that they had overcome the gods, and reckoned their sacrilege and impiety a thing to glory in.

Next, into the sacred places they imported monks, as they call them, who were men in appearance but led the lives of a swine [ἀνθρώπους μὲν κατὰ τὸ εἶδος, ὁ δὲ βίος αὐτοῖς συώδης], and openly did and allowed countless unspeakable crimes. But this they accounted piety, to show contempt for things divine. For in those days every man who wore a black robe and consented to behave in unseemly fashion in public, possessed the power of a tyrant [τυραννικὴν γὰρ εἶχεν ἐξουσίαν τότε πᾶς ἄνθρωπος μέλαιναν φορῶν ἐσθῆτα], to such a pitch of virtue had the human race advanced!
All this however I have described in my Universal History.

They settled these monks at Canobus also, and thus they fettered the human race to the worship of slaves [εἰς ἀνδραπόδων θεραπείας], and those not even honest slaves, instead of the true gods. For they collected the bones and skulls of criminals who had been put to death for numerous crimes, men whom the law courts of the city had condemned to punishment, made them out to be gods, haunted their sepulchred, and thought that they became better by defiling themselves at their graves.

“Martyrs” the dead men were called, and “ministers” of a sort, and “ambassadors” from the gods to carry men’s prayers, - these slaves in vilest servitude, who had been con-sumed by stripes and carried on their phantom forms the scars of their villainy. However these are the gods that earth produces [ἀλλ’ ὅμως ἡ γῆ φέρει τούτους τοὺς θεούς]! This, then, greatly increased the reputation of Antoninus also for foresight, in that he had foretold to all that the temples would become tombs.

(Philostratus: Lives of Sophists / Eunapius: Lives of Philosophers. Ed. by Wilmer Cave Wright. Cambridge (Mass.)/London 1921, pp. 420-425)

Die erhaltenen christlichen Berichte haben natürlich eine andere Tendenz.