The world’s oldest university gives up some of its secrets

UNESCO ranks the University of Al Quaraouiyine (Qarawiyyin, Karaouine) of Fez in Morocco, which was founded in 859 CE, as the oldest in the world on the grounds that it continues to operate until the present day. Yet, also in North Africa in what used to be known as Numidia, there are to be found the ruins of an even older university.

These are the ruins of the oldest university in the world: that of Madaura (or Madaure), in what is now Eastern Algeria on the border with Tunisia, where ancient Carthage was located. This takes us back to the history of ancient Rome, North Africa and the first decades of the Christian era.

A city that rises again from the past

Madaura (Madauros in Latin) is an ancient town situated 50 kilometres from Thagaste in the district of Souk Ahras. It was successively Berber, Roman, Vandal and then Byzantine, and is the origin of the city’s present name, M’daourouch.

It was on the site of an ancient Numidian town that the Roman city of Madaura was founded in 75 CE. The city is mentioned in ancient manuscripts from the 3rd century, but fell into decay by the 17th century.

Professor Bourahli Brahim, the director of archaeological research at the Institute of Archaeology, Algiers, has spent several years researching the city. “For more than seven years this ancient city has been the subject of my interest and attention. With the help of my team, made up of students at the Institute of Archaeology, I began my investigation to unveil the architectural mystery of this majestic and singular city,” he explains.

What is it that makes this city so mysterious? “Madaura was established between two big towns, one inhabited by a settled population and the other to the south which belonged to nomads and semi-nomads,” Bourahli explains, “and it became a crossroads, a place of interchange between several communities.”

Traversed by different civilisations, this archaeological gem gave birth to celebrated sages from the ancient world such as Saint Augustine and Maximus and Apuleius of Madaura.

The city attracted many men of letters, philosophers, grammarians, mathematicians and rhetoricians. So it was that Apuleius, credited with being the author of the ancient novel The Golden Ass, was born and took his first steps here around 123-5 CE.

In Roman times Madaura drew students particularly for its university, celebrated for its specialisation in philosophy, among them the philosopher and theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo who studied here from the age of 15. The church of Hippo still bears his name, and his works are still studied in many universities across the world.

Apuleius of Madaura, history’s first novelist

One cannot talk of Madaura without thinking of Apuleius, and vice versa. The two are intimately linked.

Apuleius of Madaura, a son of Algeria, is famous across the world and cited in a hundred or more historical and encyclopaedic works, yet his name is still little known in the country where he was born. When his father died, he received a large inheritance. Although wholly Roman by culture and actions, he always remained attached to his origins, not hesitating to claim to be “half-Numidian, half Gaetulus (a Berber tribe)”. Saint Augustine said of him: “Among us Africans Apuleius by virtue of being African is the most popular.”

Apuleius studied rhetoric and literature at the university of Madaura as well as the one in Carthage, and also in Athens, where he took an interest in neoplatonist philosophy and sophism. As a gifted orator he became an advocate in Rome before becoming an itinerant lecturer in the land of his birth. He spoke both Latin and Greek and could switch from one language to the other with no difficulty.

Apuleius wrote many books in Latin considered to be of high quality. These works are classified as “rhetorical” and include Metamorphoses, the Apology and Florida. Among his well-preserved works, The Golden Ass, also known as Metamorphoses, is the best known.

He was regarded as the greatest Latin thinker of his time and is now recognised as one of the greatest in history.

He was a writer, poet, philosopher, mathematician, doctor, law scholar, rhetorician, and master of thought and metaphor – as well as a great figure of ancient literature, whose very name excites respect, curiosity and great admiration.

The Berber who drew up the rules of Latin grammar

Maximus of Madaura, also known as Maximilian the grammarian, also stands out. He was a great jurist, perhaps the greatest of his time. He was also a wonderful rhetorician and a superb orator and an exceptional poet. Above all he was the man who established the rules of Latin grammar.

Maximus was not in fact born in Madaura, but in Thagaste. His association with the city came with his distinction as an orator at the university. He spent almost his whole life in the famous city and was the teacher of the brilliant pupil Augustine at Madaura’s school of rhetoric.

Saint Augustine (354-430 CE)

Like Maximus, Augustine was born in Thagaste, to a pagan father and a Christian mother. He received a Christian education, although he was never baptised. After studies at Thagaste and Madaura he left for Carthage to become a jurist, but rapidly abandoned all ambitions of a legal career to devote himself to teaching and studying.

His writings recall how as a young man Augustine was a precocious pupil, fond of the Latin classics and in particular Virgil. He acquired his enthusiasm for philosophy after reading Cicero’s Hortensius. Philosophy, as Augustine understood it, was not the same as contemporary philosophy as a conceptual academic discipline based on reasoning, but rather a Hellenistic search for wisdom, bringing together the distinct disciplines of philosophy, religion and psychology.

Philosophy and Manichaeism led him to renounce his Christian faith for nine years. In 383 CE he undertook the perilous journey from North Africa to Rome with the aim of finding students of a higher quality than those he had had until then. The students in Rome were indeed better than those in Carthage, but they had the tiresome habit of vanishing without paying. He therefore decided to seek a post as a professor of rhetoric in Milan.

However, he abandoned his post in Milan in 386 CE and, influenced by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, converted to Catholicism. He was baptised by Ambrose and renounced the nonreligious life.

After returning to Africa he led an almost monastic life with some friends until 391 CE, when he visited the city of Hippo. He was ordained as a priest by a congregation of the city and became a city bishop in 395 CE. He preached and wrote and acted as judge in civil and religious affairs, and ensured order at a time when the fall of the Roman Empire produced its share of political troubles. He stayed in the diocese until he died in 430 CE, when the city was besieged by the Vandals.

Few theologians would have so decisive an influence as Augustine had on subsequent religious thought, both Catholic and Protestant. Augustine’s writings are mainly the product of his thoughts on his bishopric, and biblical explanation. In the process of arguing against Manichaeaism, Donatism and Pelagianism, he created his own theology. He wrote at least 90 books as well as letters and sermons.