I'm John Batchewitz, Professor Catherine Coneybear.

Her new book is Augustine the African, emphasizing the place.

But in Augustine's mind, as a literary scholar, as with a gift for language.

He's read a book that changes his direction called the Aeneid.

You might have heard of it, written by Virgil for the period of time right before the emperor becomes Augustus.

And afterwards, I think Virgil died about 19 BCE. But the book of the Aeneid was the retelling

of the story of the Iliad from the point of view of a survivor of the Iliad's disaster,

the burning of Troy, a young man named Annius. He wanders, important, he wanders, and he touches the

shore of North Africa and the Queen of Carthage, Dido, falls in love with him. Why was that

important to Augustine? How did he interpret it, Catherine? It was important to Augustine for exactly the opposite reason to what you would think.

He learned to read through the ineered.

It was absolutely fundamental to his education.

And it was part of acculturating him to admire Rome and to admire the Roman legacy since Eneas went on to found Rome.

And instead, Augustine fell in love with Dido.

And he makes it quite clear in the confessions that he identified profoundly with Dido.

He refers to the great wanderer and founder, Ineus, as just some Ineus or other.

Whereas Dido, he emphasizes he weeps again and again over her death.

Why he falls in love with Dido is she was, other than a very charismatic literary figure.

She was the mythical founder of the city of Carthid. other than a very charismatic literary figure.

She was the mythical founder of the city of Carfidge.

And for Augustine growing up, Carfidz was the greatest, most glamorous city he knew.

His love for Dido seems importantly to be part of how he's self-identified as an African in a Roman world, this passionate identification with this founding figure.

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