Saint Augustine was a philosopher and theologian who had a profound effect on both Protestant and Catholic theology. He was born Augustine Aurelius in A.D. 354, in Thagaste (in what is now Algeria), during the Roman occupation of that region. The son of a Christian mother and a pagan father, he developed a strong interest in rhetoric and philosophy, and he left home in his late teens to study in Carthage. Although his childhood had a heavy Christian influence, Augustine did not follow Christian teachings or practices, but rather lived a hedonistic lifestyle. While in Carthage, he associated with other young men who boasted of sexual exploits, and he himself began a long-term affair with a woman. At the age of 20 or 21, he began to teach rhetoric, and by the age of 30 he was one of the premier academicians in the Latin world, teaching rhetoric at the imperial court in Milan, where he took another lover, having left the first.