Ever wondered how you would react to a gladiatorial show? We actually have a story about how a young man, who detested such fights, reacted to the games "[Alypius] had gone on to Rome before me to study law [...] he had been utterly opposed to [gladitorial] spectacles and detested them, [but] one day he met by chance a company of his acquaintances [...] they drew him, resisting and objecting vehemently, into the amphitheater, on a day of those cruel and murderous shows. He protested to them [but] they dragged him on in [...] Alypius kept his eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such wickedness. Would that he had shut his ears also! For when one of the combatants fell in the fight, a mighty cry from the whole audience stirred him so strongly that, overcome by curiosity and still prepared (as he thought) to despise and rise superior to it no matter what it was, he opened his eyes and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the victim whom he desired to see ...