This companion is the first to present Augustine as a historical figure within an expanded world of late antiquity. State-of-the-art essays by leading specialists in this field provide orientation to his material, social, and intellectual milieu; his life and career; his writings; issues of the day with which he was engaged; and the main phases of his latter-day reception and influence. Each chapter pulls together resources for readers who want to anchor historically important Augustinian ideas and impulses in the complex realities of the author's life and afterlife. The result is a multifaceted portrait of Augustine in action in his own and later times.