The Vita Augustini of Possidius has long stood in the shadow of the Confessions, in comparison to which it was considered the unremarkable work of a mediocre author. Only in the last decade have scholars begun to appreciate its value as an historical and hagiographical text. The present study extends the lines of reappraisal by making the entire literary genre 'the episcopal biography' the subject of its investigation. It offers detailed analysis of the episcopal biography from late antiquity through the ninth century, together with its most important model, the hellenistic 'Lives' of philosophers. Thus the author achieves not only a scholarly reassessment of the Vita Augustini, but a reevaluation of one of the most important literary subgenres of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.