Augustine's Confessions

Name: Augustine's Confessions
Start: 0397
End: 0400
Location: Hippo Regius (now Annaba, Algeria)

c. 397–400 · Hippo Regius (now Annaba, Algeria) · Africa · Culture

The first great autobiography: a soul gives an account of itself

Augustine's Confessions — Aurelius Augustinus · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Around 397–400 Augustine, bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa, wrote the Confessions, thirteen books addressed to God. He told of his childhood in Thagaste, a restless youth, his years as a Manichaean and his conversion in Milan in 386, and in the final books reflected on memory and time. The work is considered the first autobiography in Western literature, and its author one of the most influential theologians of Latin Christianity.

State: Western Roman Empire

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 4th century

Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)

Europe

395 Division of the Roman Empire — 2 years earlier
410 Sack of Rome by the Visigoths — 13 years later

Middle East

c. 405 Mesrop Mashtots creates the Armenian alphabet — 8 years later

Alive at the time

Augustine of Hippo (aged 43)
Hypatia (aged 37)