Hippo Regius

A Roman port city in North Africa, in present-day Algeria, where Augustine served as bishop for thirty-five years: preaching daily, arbitrating disputes, and writing the City of God and the Confessions in the hours between. He died here in 430 CE as the Vandals besieged the walls, with the psalms of penitence pinned where he could read them from his bed.

Hippo Regius was a working port on the North African coast, in what is now Annaba in Algeria. Augustine became its bishop in 395 and stayed thirty-five years, hearing legal disputes, preaching several times a week, and writing at night. The Confessions and the City of God were both produced here, in a provincial town rather than a capital. He died in 430 while a Vandal army was besieging the walls, and the library he left behind was carried off and, as it turned out, largely preserved.