39: PREVIEW: Augustine the African: St. Augustine's Profound Identification with Dido Guest: Professor Catherine Conybeare Catherine Conybeare, a classicist and author of Augustine the African, emphasizes St. Augustine as a man who lived his entire life in wh
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2025
⏱️ 4 minutes
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Summary
Guest: Professor Catherine Conybeare
Catherine Conybeare, a classicist and author of Augustine the African, emphasizes St. Augustine as a man who lived his entire life in what was then the Roman province of Africa, now Algeria—the breadbasket of Rome—except for three or four years spent in Rome and Milan. The Aeneid, the story of Aeneas founding Rome, was absolutely fundamental to Augustine's education and was intended to acculturate him to admire Rome and the Roman legacy. However, Augustine, instead of admiring Aeneas, fell in love with Dido. He refers to the great wanderer and founder Aeneas dismissively as "just some Inas or other," yet he emphasizes that he weeps again and again over Dido's death. Dido was the mythical founder of Carthage, which Augustine knew as the greatest and most glamorous city while growing up. Conybeare suggests that this passionate identification with Dido is importantly part of how Augustine self-identified as an African in a Roman world.
1915 AENEID
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| 0:15.9 | This is John Batchel, a conversation with the author and classicist professor Catherine Coneybearer, |
| 0:23.8 | Brynmar College. Her new book is Augustine the African, emphasizing St. Augustine as a man who lived |
| 0:31.6 | entire life except for three or four years away in Rome and Milan with his colleagues, lived his entire life in what is now Algeria, |
| 0:42.5 | was then the Roman province of Africa, the breadbasket of Rome, on his way to educate himself |
| 0:49.6 | to become the saint we know today, the man, the author of the city of God, and other distinguished |
| 0:54.3 | publications that we have because we have his manuscripts, we have his notes copied and recopied |
| 1:00.4 | during the Middle Ages by monks all over Europe. Here is Catherine to explain the young Augustine, |
| 1:10.2 | reading again and again the passages of the Aeneid, |
| 1:13.8 | the famous legendary story of the founding of Rome by a man named Aeneas who escapes the destruction of Troy. |
| 1:20.4 | This is as well known to young men in Africa and Rome throughout the Roman Empire. |
| 1:31.0 | This is the 4th fourth to fifth century. |
| 1:36.1 | As well known as today, you could say, Eilead was known to the Greeks. |
| 1:38.6 | Eeliet is known to the Greeks today. |
| 1:41.5 | The story of the founding of America. |
| 1:44.1 | The fairy tale story of the founding of America. The May tale story of the founding of America, the Mayflower, |
| 1:45.8 | all of those wonderful stories, upbeat, adventurous, brave, and yet Augustine reads it |
| 1:53.3 | literarily and falls in love with one character in particular, who is a tragic character, |
| 2:01.9 | Dido, the Queen of Carthage. |
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