In AD 430, the Vandals advanced eastwards along the North African coast and laid siege to the walled city of Hippo Regius.

[citation needed] Inside, Saint Augustine and his priests prayed for relief from the invaders, knowing full well that the fall of the city would spell death or conversion to the Arian confession for much of the Christian population.

On 28 August 430, three months into the siege, St. Augustine (who was 75 years old) died,[6] perhaps from starvation or stress, as the wheat fields outside the city lay dormant and unharvested.

Hippo was an ancient bishopric, one of many suffragans in the former Roman province of Numidia, a part of the residential see of Constantine.

[9] The synods of the Ancient (North) African church were held, with but few exceptions (e.g. Hippo, 393; Milevum, 402) at Carthage.

We know from the letters of Saint Cyprian that, except in time of persecution, the African bishops met at least once a year, in the springtime, and sometimes again in the autumn.

The Hippo(ne) diocese was nominally revived in 1400 as Catholic Latin titular bishopric of the (lowest) episcopal rank, for which no incumbent is recorded.