Plato and the first Academy
The etymological origin of the word Academy derives from the Greek word Hekademeia (Ἑκαδημεια); it was the name of a region that was located two and a half kilometres to the northwest of Athens.1 In ancient Greek mythology, the legendary hero Hekademos (Ἑκάδημος)2 had been given the area as a reward for revealing to the Diokouroi where Theseus had hidden Helen of Troy, and later renamed the property Hekademeia in homage to himself.3 The area has been used by religious cults dedicated to Hekademos dating back to the sixth century B.C.4 The arid land was later developed by the statesman, Cimon (c.510–450 B.C.), who constructed running tracks and shady walks, planted a grove of olive trees and enclosed much of its precincts with a wall.5 The olive trees, according to an Athenian fable, were reared from cuttings of the sacred olive that Athena had ‘made grow’ in the Erechtheum, an ancient temple on the north side of the Acropolis.6 They produced the oil given as a prize to victors at Panathenaic festivals.7 Both the walled garden and the surrounding areas became known as the Akademeia (the ‘He-’ became abbreviated to ‘A-’) and they were adorned with a collection of temples, a gymnasium and a large garden. It was in one corner of this garden that Plato (428–348 B.C.) gathered his peers and pupils together to discuss various topical matters of the day. Plato later acquired part of the garden and built a house and a chapel dedicated to the muses.8 There is no historical record of the exact date the forum was officially founded, but it was probably sometime after 387 B.C. Once the project gathered momentum, the people of Athens regarded the forum for learning as synonymous with the area, and it took on the name of the district.
With the community owning its own land and premises, Plato would have been required to proffer a name for it. The legal requirement of the day was that every thiasos, namely, a cult, organisation or association, would nominate an ‘owner’ of any property or asset the thiasos might possess, and that the owner would provide a formal title for the group. No records of the ancient registry remain; thus, it is unknown whether Plato used the term Academy as an official title for the thiasos. The Academy was also legally required to be affiliated with a religious association. To suffice this requirement Plato chose to dedicate his society to the Muses, the patrons of education, not so much because he believed that philosophy was the highest ‘art’, but because a Museion, or a chapel of the Muses, was a regular feature of the schools of the day.9 It is clear from the writing of Plato that the society was never intended to be a religious sect. Instead, it was a collection of scholars, teachers and students working together, dedicated to philosophical, mathematical and scientific study; a set of interests that Plato started to develop during his privileged childhood.
Plato bore the name of his Grandfather, Aristocles, although it was superseded by his now familiar nickname, given by his gymnastic master on account of his powerful build (Plátōn, meaning ‘wide or broad-shouldered’). Plato was born into an aristocratic family that was never far from politics. Plato’s mother’s brother, Charmides, and her cousin, Critias, became notorious leaders of a government known as the ‘Thirty Tyrants’. However, this party so misused its power, that even the blindest eyes that despised the government it overthrew were open to the perils of the political victors. After Plato’s father died, his mother married Pyrilampes, a supporter of the Periclean democracy that overthrew the Athenian government in 404 B.C. Plato grew up in a context that assumed he would enter politics; however, he never joined a partisan group having been repelled by the irresponsible and often violent actions of political parties, including those of his own family. Considering the political turmoil that surrounded Plato, the historian Eduard Zeller notes;
It is easy to see how a noble, high-minded youth, in the midst of such experiences and influences, might be discouraged, not only with democracy, but with existing state systems in general, and take refuge in political utopias, which would further tend to draw off his mind from the actual towards the ideal.10
Plato turned to pursue a deeper understanding of knowledge and virtue after the newly empowered direct democracy accused Socrates, his mentor, of corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced him to death. Plato offered to pay a fine to spare his friend’s life, but Socrates decided to go to his death willingly. In Plato’s Republic, which explores whether it is always better to be just or unjust, a character argues that people would all behave unjustly if they could get away with it. To address this, Plato required Socrates to imagine what a perfectly just city might look like and applies lessons from that to the individual soul. If the soul is best ruled by reason, he argues, then the city would be best ruled by philosophers. Plato’s stance on justice led him to believe that an education worthy of an Athenian citizen was unfairly reserved for the influential and affluent and was eager to address the imbalance.11 One example of this can be seen by his inclusion of women within his own school:
And I say further, without hesitation, that the same education in riding and gymnastic shall be given both to men and women. The ancient tradition about the Amazons confirms my view, and at the present day there are myriads of women, called Sauromatides, dwelling near the Pontus, who practise the art of riding as well as archery and the use of arms. But if I am right, nothing can be more foolish than our modern fashion of training men and women differently, whereby the power of the city is reduced to a half.12
Plato wrote little on his Academy’s ideology and teaching practices, and only a few notable ancient texts by others on the activities undertaken at the Academy have been preserved, most of which were produced by Plato’s star student, Aristotle (384–322 B.C.).13 Of the texts that Plato did write that relate to the Academy, the most insightful is the dialogue, Seventh Letter. Here Plato notes that he did not give formal lectures except for one he called ‘on the good’. The dialogue outlines Plato’s emphatic belief that lectures ought never to be given, that notes should never be taken because of their ill effects on the memory, and that manuals of instruction should be treated with scepticism. Given this view, it is likely that Plato intended to avoid recording matters discussed at the Academy; thus, our understanding of its activities remains scant. It is known, however, that Plato was the leader of the Academy until his death and that he had appointed Speusippus (408–339 B.C.) to be his successor. Younger members held minor offices such as gatekeeper for the temple (who was responsible for the offering of sacrifices), secretary (who registered the members), and censor (who kept order in the meetings and prepared the symposia). The symposia were based on banquets and were regarded in the Academy as solemn festive acts where animals were sacrificed. It appears that no fees were charged, at least while Plato was in office, and that no staff or qualifications existed.
The Academy aimed to produce political experts who were guided by philosophy. Plato’s primary aspiration was to train a chosen group of righteous men (and possibly women) in the ways of the Academy to propagate justice in society. To this end, Plato believed that ‘education should be exercised by all people’, which most distinguishes the Academy from other contemporaneous Greeks schools. In The Laws Plato notes:
It shall not be so, that teaching is only sought by those fathers who wish it, yet is neglected by those whose fathers will not have them taught; but each man and each boy shall so far as is possible submit to compulsory education, for they belong more to the republic than to their parents.14
Additionally, whereas the Sicilian Pythagorean schools of the late sixth century B.C. were closed societies of an exceptional character, the Academy covered a range of subject matters and was mostly open to public debate.
On the activities of the Academy, Professor Mueller, an expert in ancient Greek philosophy, cites Philodemus’s history of the Platonic school, written in the first century B.C. on papyrus and in a damaged condition.
At that time, great progress was seen in mathematics, with Plato serving as general director (architektonountos) and setting out problems, and the mathematician investigating them earnestly. In this way, the subject of metrology (metrologia) and the problems concerning {…} then reached their high point for the first time, as E[udo]{x}us and his followers transformed the old-fashioned work (a{rch}aismon) o[f Hip]po[cra]tes. Geometry, too, made great progress; for analysis and the {lemma} concerning diorismoi were created, and in general the subject of geometry was advanced greatly. And [op]t[io]s and mechanics were not at all ignored.15
The main subject of discussion at the Academy was mathematics, though the reason for discussing this topic was not to produce specialists in mathematics, but so that the students’ minds might be trained and prepared for dialectics. It was dialectics that formed the basis of almost all the twenty-five dialogues that Plato wrote, and which he claimed to be the highest form of educational activity.16 Thus, his achievement was primarily to challenge and inspire a systematic argument rather than contribute any real advancement in mathematics. Plato’s style of teaching at the Academy was more akin to that of a mentor than a school principal. Harold Cherniss notes:
Plato’s role appears to have been not that of a “master” or even of a seminar director distributing subjects for research reports or prize essays, but that of an individual thinker whose insight and skill in the formulation of a problem enables him to offer general advice and methodical criticism to other individual thinkers who respect his wisdom and who may be dominated by his personality but who consider themselves at least as competent as they consider him in dealing with the details of specific issues.17
Plato appears not to have been as interested in his own involvement in the Academy as the activities and discussions that it pursued. He was not always present at the Academy and embarked on numerous journeys that would have taken many months to complete. During his travels, the Academy was run by some of the students.
Since the fourteenth century Plato’s Academy has been revered as an intellectual forum of distinguished scholars; however, it appears that at the time of its existence it was regarded as a strange and even foolish club. Epicrates of Ambracia, a contemporary of Plato, wrote a satirical comedy that included a conversation between a few unnamed speakers:
What about Plato, Speusippus, and Menedemus? What subjects are they dealing with now? What thought, what argument are they investigating? If you’ve come knowing anything please tell these things to me with discretion. I can talk about these things clearly. At the Panathenaic festival I saw a band of gay youth in the gymnasium of the Academy and heard them say utterly weird things. They were making distinctions concerning nature, the life of animals, the nature of trees, and the genera of vegetables. Among other things they were studying the genus of the pumpkin. How did they define it? What is the genus of the plant? Reveal this to me if you know. Well, first they stood silently, bent over, and they thought for a considerable time. Suddenly, while the young men still bent over and reflecting, one of them pronounced it a round vegetable, another a grass, a third a tree. A Sicilian doctor who heard these things blew a fart at the fools. That must have made the students angry. I suppose they shouted out against the man’s derision. For it is out of place to do such things during a discussion. It didn’t bother them. Plato was there, and he enjoined them, very gently and without agitation, to try again from the beginning to distinguish the genus of the pumpkin. They proceeded to do so.18
During the Academy’s existence, most Greek citizens were unlikely to have heard of Plato’s Academy at all. The Greek traveller and geographer Pausanias wrote what might now be regarded as a tourist information guide on Athens in the second century A.D. The text describes the graves of the Academy, the altars and olive trees. Only towards the end does it mention a memorial to Plato, but there is no mention of the forum.
In ancient Athens, the Academy was first and foremost a public park dominated by its gymnasium, and the connection between it and Plato’s school was only one of the numerous historical reminiscences in an area rich in history.19
Indeed, until the mid-fifteenth century, only the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.) had cited the forum by using the term Academy. According to the philosopher Pliny, Cicero used the term Academy to refer to his villa near Puteoli.20 He used the term again as the title of his book, Academica in 45 B.C., which was an attempt to rework Hellenistic epistemological debates in Latin.21
The history of Plato’s Academy has been generally documented in chronological eras relating to the philosophical bents of the succeeding leaders of the school, or important figures who were associated with its legacy.22 The extent and number of eras that categorise its history have changed in unison with periods of renewed interest in the forum. Ancient Greek historiography tends to distinguish between Old, Middle and New Academies. Essentially, these periods cover one or more leaders of the school and articulate their philosophical propensities.23 As the history of the Academy was studied later, some authorities such as the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero divided the history of the Academy into the Old Academy, and the New Academy.24 Other authorities took to dividing the history of the Academy into five periods: Old, Middle and New...
