Hippo Regius
Port city of Roman Africa where Augustine was presbyter and bishop for almost forty years. The bishops of Africa met here in council in 393, and the Vandals were besieging it when Augustine died in 430.
Hippo Regius was a harbour town on the coast of Roman Africa, at modern Annaba in Algeria. Augustine of Hippo was ordained presbyter there under its bishop Valerius, founded a monastery within the church, and was then made bishop (Possidius, Life of Augustine 4–5, 8). The bishops of the African provinces met in council in its Basilica of Peace on 8 October 393 (Council of Carthage (397) African Code, notice of the council of Hippo); see African Councils List the Books of Scripture. In 430 the Vandals laid siege to the city. Augustine died in the third month of the siege, and Possidius adds that Hippo was afterwards abandoned by its people and burned (Possidius, Life of Augustine 28–29).
What happened here
- AD 393 to AD 397, firm dateAfrican Councils List the Books of Scripture
The bishops of Roman Africa, meeting at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397, rule that only canonical Scripture may be read in church and list its books: a New Testament of twenty-seven books and an Old Testament that includes Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach and Maccabees.
- August AD 410, firm dateThe Sack of Rome and Augustine’s City of God
Alaric’s Goths take and plunder Rome in August 410. Pagans blame the disaster on the abandonment of the old gods. Augustine answers with the City of God, twenty-two books on the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, written over a number of years.