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Jerome was born at Stridon, on the border between Pannonia and Dalmatia, close to Aquileia, as mentioned in his De Viris Illustribus Chapter 135 (English translation below). Jerome was possibly an Illyrian, born to Christian parents, but was not baptized until about 360 or 366, when he had gone to Rome with his friend Bonosus (who may or may not have been the same Bonosus whom Jerome identifies as his friend who went to live as a hermit on an island in the Adriatic) to pursue rhetorical and philosophical studies. He studied under the grammarian Aelius Donatus. Jerome learned Greek, but yet had no thought of studying the Greek Fathers, or any Christian writings. Payne offers a different account of his conversion. As a student in Rome, he engaged in the gay activities of students there which he indulged in quite casually yet suffered terrible bouts of repentance afterwards.[5] To appease his conscience, he would visit on Sundays the sepulchers of the martyrs and the apostles in the catacombs. This experience would remind him of the terrors of hell. "Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist’s words were fulfilled, Let them go down quick into Hell. Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Vergil, Horror ubique animo, simul ipsa silentia terrent." (Jerome, Commentarius in Ezechielem, c. 40, v. 5) Jerome initially used classical authors to describe Christian concepts, such as hell, that indicated both his classical education and his deep shame of their associated practices, such as male homosexuality. Although initially skeptical of Christianity, he finally converted.