Platonic Academy

Listen for a moment. Car horns drift in from the avenues, and a dog barks somewhere behind the apartment blocks. Under your feet, though, the ground is soft and dusty, scattered with dry leaves. Low stone walls rise only a little above the grass. Old men sit on benches in the shade. Children ride bicycles along the paths. At first glance this looks like an ordinary neighbourhood park in Athens. But you are standing where one of the most influential schools in human history began.

This is the Platonic Academy, or what remains of it. Around 387 BCE, the philosopher Plato began teaching here. He was a student of Socrates, and he had watched his teacher sentenced to death by the city. Afterwards, Plato chose a place outside the city walls. He did not build a university in the modern sense. He gathered students in a grove, and they walked, argued, and asked difficult questions together.

The grove already had a name long before Plato arrived. It belonged to a local hero called Akademos, or Hekademos. According to legend, he helped the twins Castor and Pollux find their stolen sister, Helen. The Athenians honoured him with a sacred grove on this spot. From his name came the word Academy. Here is the first surprise. Every academy in the world, every academic, every academic paper — all of them take their name from an obscure hero of this one Athenian grove.

In ancient times, this was not a quiet corner of the city. It was a place of trees, water, and exercise. The Kifissos river ran nearby, and the land was green and well watered. The grove held olive trees sacred to the goddess Athena. Ancient writers said these trees came from the sacred olive on the Acropolis itself. There was also a gymnasium. Young Athenian men came here to train their bodies, and Plato came to train their minds.

Imagine the walk that brought people here. A road ran from the Dipylon Gate, the main gate in the city walls, out towards this grove. It was more than a kilometre long. Along its sides stood the tombs of Athenians who had died in war. This was the public cemetery, near the area now called Kerameikos. So the student who came to learn philosophy passed the graves of the city's fallen. Life, death, and the good life — the questions were already waiting on the road.

Plato's most famous student studied here for about twenty years. His name was Aristotle. He arrived as a young man from northern Greece and stayed until Plato's death. Later, Aristotle founded his own school on the other side of Athens, called the Lyceum. Think about that for a moment. Two of the most important thinkers in Western history shared these paths. Their disagreements shaped science, ethics, and politics for more than two thousand years.

Here is a story many visitors hear. Locals and guides often say that a sign hung over the entrance. It read: Let no one ignorant of geometry enter. It is a good story, and it fits Plato's love of mathematics. But the earliest sources for this phrase come from centuries after his death. Historians treat it with caution. Still, the idea behind it is true. Plato believed that mathematics trained the mind to see beyond appearances.

The school did not end with Plato. His successors led it for generations. But the grove itself suffered. In 86 BCE, the Roman general Sulla besieged Athens. Ancient writers tell us that he cut down the trees of the Academy for timber to build his siege machines. The sacred olives, the shade, the green grove — much of it fell to Roman axes. Philosophy continued in Athens, but the old Academy was badly damaged.

Centuries later, philosophers known as Neoplatonists revived Plato's teaching in Athens. One of the best known was Proclus, in the fifth century. These thinkers mixed philosophy with religion and mysticism. Then, in 529, the Christian emperor Justinian issued a decree against pagan teaching. This date is traditionally seen as the end of the philosophical schools of Athens. Historians still debate exactly what happened. But for many people, 529 marks the close of the ancient world of thought.

After that, the grove was forgotten for a very long time. Farms, houses, and later the growing modern city covered the area. In the early twentieth century, excavations began here. Archaeologists uncovered foundations of buildings from several periods. Some remains are much older than Plato. Others date from Roman times. Here is the second surprise. The ruins you see are not one neat campus. They are layers from many centuries, sitting side by side in the grass.

Look around at the stone foundations. One large area is a square courtyard surrounded by columns, known as a peristyle. Archaeologists connect it with the gymnasium. Nearby are the remains of a much older building from the early Iron Age. Most of what survives is only knee height or lower. You must use your imagination to raise the walls. Picture columns, shaded walkways, and young men talking as they walked.

The neighbourhood around you still carries the name Akadimia Platonos. It is a working Athenian district, not a tourist zone. Nearby is the hill of Kolonos. The playwright Sophocles came from Kolonos, and he set his play Oedipus at Colonus there. In the play, the blind and exiled Oedipus finds a final place of rest near Athens. So this corner of the city connects philosophy and tragedy, two great Athenian inventions.

Before you leave, stand still for a minute. Notice the olive trees and the light coming through their leaves. Notice the low stones, the voices of neighbours, the sound of traffic beyond the trees. Plato's students argued about what is real and what is only a shadow. Here, the buildings are almost gone. But the questions they asked are still alive. As you walk back towards the city, you follow, in a small way, their old road.