The path of Augustine’s outward success had been attended by some experimenting in the personal realm, in the spheres of both religion and love. But the latter should not be blown out of perspective. Apart from his exceptional performance at school, the young Augustine appears to have had an ordinary childhood. His adolescent sexual adventures, which he refers to with rather chaste allusions, do not seem to have been all that numerous. By the age of seventeen, he was living with a woman who had his