THE Victory Games began harmlessly enough, but soon the gladiators leapt into the arena. Death was all around, while happy crowds punched the air and shouted themselves hoarse.

Suddenly, a frail old man in a tattered robe ran onto the sandy floor, pushing the giant gladiators apart, pleading with them to stop their madness.

The spectators rose as one man against this self-righteous spoilsport, this enemy of fun, and cheered as sword and stone battered him into the sand.

But in a blink of an eye, the mood changed. Someone had recognised him, as a monk from the Greek east on a pilgrimage, a man even the most thoughtless respected.

One broken body troubled and troubled this generation, as tens of thousands had never troubled the generations before it.

So when Emperor Honorius, a Christian, decreed that gladiators would never step into that arena again, Rome made no protest. Where so many had died before, no man ever died again.