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Some of the professors who went from town to town giving lectures made considerable fortunes. At Thagaste they pointed with admiration to the example of the rhetorician Victorinus, an African, a fellow-countryman, who had made a big reputation over-seas, and had his statue in the Roman Forum.
The gaiety of the mornings there is a physical luxury for heart and eyes, when the new-born light laughs upon the painted cupolas of the houses, and dark blue veils float between the walls, glaring white, of the steep streets. Among the olives and orange-trees of Hippo, Augustin must have seen happy days pass by, as at Thagaste.
It fell to her husband to open her eyes. With the freedom of manners among the ancients, Augustin relates the fact quite plainly.... That took place in the bath-buildings at Thagaste. He was bathing with his father, probably in the piscina of cold baths. Patricius, as a good pagan, welcomed with jubilation this promise of grand-children, and rushed off joyously to brag of his discovery to Monnica.
The best thing he could do, if he did not want to vegetate, was to fall back on some more modest post. Now his protector, Romanianus, wanted him to go to Thagaste. This rich man had a son almost grown up, whom it was necessary to put as soon as possible in the hands of a tutor. Augustin, so often helped by the father, was naturally thought of to look after the youth.
Himself a Manichee, converted by Augustin, and a member of one of the leading families in Thagaste, he had not long to wait for an important appointment in the Imperial administration. He was assessor to the Treasurer-General, or "Count of the Italian Bounty Office," and decided fiscal questions.
Among them was found that Alypius, who was the friend of all his life, who shared his faults and mistakes, who followed him even in his conversion, and became Bishop of Thagaste. These two future shepherds of Christ roamed the streets with the lost sheep. They spent the nights in the open spaces of the town, playing, or wantonly dreaming before cups of cool drinks.
Moreover, it is pretty nearly certain that at this time he had already started that connection which was to last so long. To leave a mistress whom he loved, and that in all the freshness of a passion just beginning one wonders how he was able to make up his mind to it. And yet he did leave, and spent nearly a year at Thagaste.
In his heart, the bishop was delighted with this brutal capture which gained him the distinction of such a well-known fellow-worker. There and then he ordained the Thagaste monk.
They were obliged to a conduct which would shew them worthy of all the outer marks of respect which surrounded them. The austerity of Monnica had increased with the zeal of her faith. She set an example to the Church people at Thagaste.
In one point, where even she did not intend it, she forwarded the interests of her husband by gaining him the good-will of the Christians in Thagaste; while he, on his side, could say to the pagans who looked askance at his marriage: "Am I not one of yourselves?" In spite of all the differences between him and Monnica, Patricius was a contented husband.
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