The Summit of Ancient Latin Mathematical Competence: Apuleius and Augustine

According to all we know, Latin Antiquity was utterly unfamiliar with the theoretical aspects of mathematics; Quintilian did not know finger reckoning from geometry, while Cicero explains that the Romans were not interested. Authors of handbooks in the liberal arts may know some definitions from the Elements and perhaps some enunciations, but hardly understood what a proof is. Symptomatic is what Latin authors have to tell about Archimedes: the story about his death and his defense of Syracuse; the anecdote about Hieron's crown and Archimedes's exposure of the fraud; his mechanical model of the heavenly system; at most they know that he drew figures. There is never a hint that such figures were connected to geometrical or mechanical proofs, theorems or theory. But there are two exceptions to this rule, both Berbers (Africani), and both conscious of being so: Apuleius of Madaura, and Augustine of Hippo (both obviously much better known for other things). Even though the Western part of Northern Africa acquired the Latin tongue while the Eastern part spoke Greek, some of its intellectuals were drawn to advanced Greek thought in a way those of the remaining Latin world were not, spellbound as the latter were in the charms of rhetoric.