Site
Before the Akademia was a school, and even before Cimon enclosed its precincts with a wall, it contained a sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, outside the city walls of ancient Athens. The archaic name for the site was Hekademia (Ἑκαδήμεια), which by classical times evolved into Akademia and was explained, at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it to an Athenian hero, a legendary "Akademos".
The site of the Academy was sacred to Athena and other immortals; it had sheltered her religious cult since the Bronze Age, a cult that was perhaps also associated with the hero-gods the Dioscuri (Castor and Polydeuces), for the hero Akademos associated with the site was credited with revealing to the Divine Twins where Theseus had hidden Helen. Out of respect for its long tradition and the association with the Dioscuri, the Spartans would not ravage these original "groves of Academe" when they invaded Attica, a piety not shared by the Roman Sulla, who axed the sacred olive trees of Athena in 86 BC to build siege engines.
Among the religious observations that took place at the Akademeia was a torchlit night race from altars within the city to Prometheus' altar in the Akademeia. Funeral games also took place in the area as well as a Dionysiac procession from Athens to the Hekademeia and then back to the polis. The road to Akademeia was lined with the gravestones of Athenians.
The site of the Academy was located near Colonus. The walk from Athens to the Academy was 6 stadia (1 mile) from the Dipylon gates (Kerameikos). The site was rediscovered in the 20th century, in modern Akadimia Platonos; considerable excavation has been accomplished and visiting the site is free.
Read more about this topic: Platonic Academy
Famous quotes containing the word site:
“I am not aware that any man has ever built on the spot which I occupy. Deliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient city, whose materials are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is blanched and accursed there, and before that becomes necessary the earth itself will be destroyed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Don Logan, U.S. businessman, president and chief executive of Time Inc. His response when asked how much his company had spent in the last year to develop Pathfinder, Time Inc.’S site on the World Wide Web. Quoted in New York Times, p. D7 (November 13, 1995)
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—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)