It is certain that Monica exerted a powerful influence over the career and conversion of her son.
Within the confines of his father's tenuous means and the decadence of the late Roman Empire, Augustine received a good education First at Tagaste, then at nearby Madauros, and finally--after a year of idleness caused by his father's poverty--at Carthage. He studied grammar and rhetoric, the master of which was the Roman orator, statesman, and philosopher Cicero. At the age of nineteen Augustine read Cicero's now-lost Hortensius, an introduction to the philosophic life in the manner of Aristotle that inspired in Augustine the desire for wisdom. Augustine's search for wisdom led him into Manichaeanism.
The Manichaeans were a Gnostic sect, widespread in the Middle East and northern Africa in the fourth century. Basing a dualistic doctrine of good and evil on a special revelation supposedly given to their founder.
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