He then took up a teaching position, and remained there from 17 years to 28 years of age.
At the age of sixteen years Augustine moved to Carthage in the year 370 to study rhetoric.
This extension to his education was made financially possible by assistance to the family by
Romanianus.
This man was a wealthy patron in Thagaste who supported
Patricius, the father of Augustine, in planning for Augustine to become a lawyer in the Roman imperial civil service.
Regardless of whether Augustine fully concurred with this vision or merely acquiesced with it for the lack of any better option, he essentially lay this vision aside in his second year in
Carthage.
At that moment, his reading of the
Hortensius by the long-dead classical Roman author,
Cicero.
The Hortensius captured his fancy and made desire seriously to turn himself towards the pursuit of Truth and philosophy. (This will be further covered on the Augnet page that follows this one.)
Within a year Patricius, his father, had died back in Thagaste, and
Monica his mother could not exert much influence on Augustine from that distance.
ID0344
