Augustine studied first in Thagaste, then in the nearby town of Madaura, and finally at Carthage, the great city of Roman Africa.
Although his parents, Patricius and Monica, struggled financially to arrange for him the best education they could, the education he received before turning himself into an outstanding scholar was not as outstanding by comparison. His great intellect compensated for what his formal education lacked.
The years 354-365: The infancy and early schooling of Augustine.
His parents made financial sacrifices to see that Augustine received a classical Latin education in the local school. Augustine delighted in Latin literature, but he detested the brutally enforced rote learning of arithmetic and Greek.
The years 366-369: His education at Madaura.
His education continued at a school in nearby Madaura, a centre of education in Roman North Africa fifteen kilometres (twenty miles) south of Thagaste. He was sent there to study rhetoric at the age twelve. Here also Augustine was taught the polite language of Latin. Up until this point, he had probably spoken the Punic dialect of Numidia. His teachers at Madura were pagans.
He now became fascinated by the world of literature that opened up to him through the Latin language. His studies of pagan Latin literature particularly included the works of Cicero and Virgil. These authors greatly influenced the style of his later writings. His reading of Cicero also influenced him to study philosophy, which is the study and the seeking of wisdom. By this point in his education, Augustine had emerged as a gifted student, drived hard by his parents, with a phenominal memory and a great attention to detail.
The year 370: A year without schooling in Thagaste at the age of sixteen years.
Augustine had to return home for a year while Patricius saved money for his further education. A year without school led the adolescent student into acts of dissipation and sexual adventure. This poor behaviour is recounted in Book Two of the Confessions.
The years 371-373: The study of rhetoric in Carthage.
Augustine moved to Carthage to be trained in rhetoric at a higher level. In today's terminology, this equipped him to use words to persuade an audience through the use of expressive, ornamented, and persuasive speech. In those days it was fundamental to any professional career in law or government.
Today we would see rhetoric as the background to being skilled in public speaking, or to being a lawyer in a courtroom. Augustine described rhetoric as the skill required for the effective public communication of what a person was thinking. After his period of full-time education ended, Augustine became a teacher in the year 374 in Thagaste, his home town.AN1025