Just about the time when Cyprian was born in Carthage, Perpetua and Felicitas amazed the people. Everybody was talk ing about it. Perpetua was twenty-two years old. Cyprian's father and mother must have known her very well. The two families belonged to the same high-born and wealthy society. They were all pagans together. But Perpetua had become a Christian. It was as if, in Russia, the daughter of a noble family should become an anarchist.