ABSTRACT
This chapter presents on Roman Carthage, which, after the destruction of the Punic capital and the ritual cursing by the younger Scipio Africanus in 146 BC, was refounded by Caesar in March 44 BC as the Colonia Concordia Iulia Carthago and in 29 BC, 15 years later and after a ritual exorcism, was reconstructed at great expense and effort by Octavian. The first question need to ask, however, is how should imagine the environment in which Augustine lived in Carthage, or, rather, how he models it in his texts. On a Sunday in AD 399, when Augustine was preaching in Carthage the city was celebrating, as it did every year, the Foundation Festival of the Colonia Concordia Iulia Carthago. As was evidently normal practice when events overlapped with a church service, the participants in the festival also came to the service and behaved in a boisterous, festive fashion inside the church.
