Academus
Academus (
Place origins
Academus, the site was sacred to
According to Plutarch, Cimon converted this, "waterless and arid spot into a well watered grove, which he provided with clear running-tracks and shady walks".[2] Its sacred grove furnished the olive oil that was distributed as prizes in the Panathenaic Games and contained in the finely decorated Panathenaic amphorae presented to the winners.
Mythology
Plato
Academe was the site of Plato's Academy and within its groves, he gave his lectures. According to Diogenes Laertius, Dion, "bought for Plato the little garden which is in the Academy".[4] Diogenes Laertius, notes Timon of Phlius observes that there Plato "a big fish, but a sweet-voiced speaker, musical in prose as the cicada who, perched on the trees of Hecademus, pours forth a strain as delicate as a lily".[5]
Groves of Academe
The phrase "the groves of Academe" comes from Horace's Epistles, 20 b.c.): Atque inter silvas academi quaerere verum (To seek for truth in the groves of Academe)'. John Milton, in Paradise Regained book 4, 244-245, uses the phrase: "See there the Olive Grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic Bird Trills her thick-warbl'd notes the summer long". Mary McCarthy made the phrase the title of her satirical novel The Groves of Academe.
Notes
- ^ Plutarch, Theseus 32: "But Dicaearchus says that Echedemus and Marathus of Arcadia were in the army of the Tyndaridae at that time, from the first of whom the present Academy was named Echedemia, and from the other, the township of Marathon"
- ^ Plutarch, Cimon § 8
- ^ Plutarch, Theseus 32
- Diogenes Laërtius, 3.20
- ^ Diogenes Laërtius, 3.7
References
- Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, Lives with an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 1. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Academus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.