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Many years after, an old Madaura grammarian, called Maximus, wrote to him in a tone of loving reproach: "Thou hast drawn away from us" a secta nostra deviasti. Did he wish to hint that at this time Augustin had glided into paganism? Nothing is more unlikely. He himself assures us that the name of Christ remained always "graven on his heart."
LUCIUS APULEIUS African, an excellent follower of Plato his sect, born in Madaura, a Countrey sometime inhabited by the Romans, and under the jurisdiction of Syphax, scituate and lying on the borders of Numidia and Getulia, whereby he calleth himself half a Numidian and half a Getulian: and Sidonius named him the Platonian Madaurence: his father called Theseus had passed all offices of dignity in his countrey with much honour.
A branch of the Bagradas, navigable for boats, opened a way from it through the woods, where flight and concealment were easy on a surprise, as far as Madaura, Vacca, and other places; at the same time it commanded the vast plain on the south which extended to the roots of the Atlas.
Carthage did not offer only pleasures to Augustin; it was besides an extraordinary subject to think about for an understanding so alert and all-embracing as his. At Carthage he understood the Roman grandeur as he could not at Madaura and the Numidian towns. Here, as elsewhere, the Romans made a point of impressing the minds of conquered races by the display of their strength and magnificence.
Yes, the scholar of Madaura lived wonderful hours, dreaming thus of love between the pages of the poets. These young dreams before love comes are more bewitching than love itself: a whole unknown world suddenly discovered and entered with a quivering joy of discovery at each step. The unused strength of illusion appears inexhaustible, space becomes deeper and the heart more strong....
Pater indeed actually introduced the philosopher-novelist of Madaura in the book, though he was not the hero; and his own peculiar style proved itself admirably suited to the period and subject, whether in description and conversation, or in such translation or paraphrase as that of the famous and exquisite Pervigilium Veneris.
At Madaura he lived in a miraculous world, where everything charmed his senses and his mind, and everything stimulated his precocious instinct for Beauty. More than Thagaste, no doubt, Madaura bore the marks of the building genius of the Romans. Even to-day their descendants, the Italians, are the masons of the world, after having been the architects.
He was near his sixteenth year: the awkward time of early virility was beginning for him. Prepared at Madaura, it suddenly burst out at Thagaste. Augustin came back to his parents, no doubt during the vacation. But this vacation lasted perhaps a whole year. He had come to the end of his juvenile studies. The grammarians at Madaura could teach him nothing more.
Not less than this land, stern even to sadness, but hot and sumptuous, the town of Madaura must have impressed Augustin. It was an old Numidian city, proud of its antiquity. Long before the Roman conquest, it had been a fortress of King Syphax.
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