Platonic Academy

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Platonic Academy

For the Raphael painting, see The School of Athens
The School of Athens

'The School of Athens', or in Italian language, is one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1510 in art and 1511 in art as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the , in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City....
The Academy (??ad?µe?a) was founded by Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
in ca. 387 BC in Athens

Classical Athens

The city of Athens during classical antiquity was a notable polis of Attica, Ancient Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League....
. It persisted throughout the Hellenistic period

Hellenistic period

The Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia....
as a skeptical

Philosophical skepticism

Philosophical skepticism is both a Philosophy school of thought and a method that crosses disciplines and cultures. Many skeptics critically examine the meaning systems of their times, and this examination often results in a position of ambiguity or doubt....
school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa

Philo of Larissa

Philo or Philon of Larissa was a Greeks philosopher of the first half of the 1st century BC. He was a pupil of Clitomachus , whom he succeeded as head of the Platonic Academy....
in 83 BC. Although philosophers continued to teach Plato's philosophy in Athens during the Roman era

Roman era

The Roman Era is a period in Western history, when Ancient Rome was the centre of power of the world around the Mediterranean Sea, where Latin was the lingua franca....
, it was not until AD 410 that a revived Academy was re-established as a center for Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonism....
, persisting until AD 529 when it was finally closed down by Justinian I

Justinian I

Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus , AD 482 or 483 ? 13 or 14 November 565, was the second member of the Justinian Dynasty and List of Roman Emperors from 527 until his death....
.

The Platonic Academy may be compared to Aristotle's Lyceum

Lyceum

A Lyceum can be*an educational institution , or*a public hall used for cultural events like concerts.*Mount Lyceum . The holy mount of the Arcadians....
.

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

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
, the goddess of wisdom

Wisdom

Wisdom is knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion, and Intuition , along with a capacity to apply these qualities well towards finding solutions to problems....
, outside the city walls of ancient Athens

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
.

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The Academy (??ad?µe?a) was founded by Plato

Plato

Classical Athens

Hellenistic period

Philosophical skepticism

Philo of Larissa

Roman era

Neoplatonism

Justinian I

Lyceum

A Lyceum can be*an educational institution , or*a public hall used for cultural events like concerts.*Mount Lyceum . The holy mount of the Arcadians....
.

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

Athena

Wisdom

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
. The archaic name for the site was Hekademia (??ad?µe?a), 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

Greek hero cult

Akademos

Akademos was an Attica hero cult in Greek mythology. The tale traditionally told of him is that when Castor and Pollux invaded Attica to liberate their sister Helen, he betrayed to them that she was kept concealed at Afidnes....
".

The site of the Academy was sacred to Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
and other immortals; it had sheltered her religious cult since the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
, a cult that was perhaps also associated with the hero-gods

Greek hero cult

Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" refers to any man who was fighting on either side of the Trojan War....
the Dioscuri (Castor and Polydeuces), for the hero Akademos associated with the site was credited with revealing to the Divine Twins where Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
had hidden Helen

Helen

In Greek mythology, Helen , better known as Helen of Sparta later Helen of Troy, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda , wife of King Menelaus of Sparta and sister of Castor and Pollux, Castor and Pollux and Clytemnestra....
. Out of respect for its long tradition and the association with the Dioscuri, the Sparta

Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
ns would not ravage these original "groves of Academe" when they invaded Attica, a piety not shared by the Roman Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix , or simply Sulla, was a Roman general and politician, holding the office of consul twice as well as the Roman dictator....
, 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 Promtheus' 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

Colonus

}|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"| Population percentage : || 15% Non-Greeks85% Greeks|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"| Elevation: -lowest: -centre: -highest:||about 3540 mabout 45 m...
. The walk from Athens to the Academy was 6 stadia

Stadia

Stadium or stadion has the plural stadia in both Latin and Greek. Stadia refers to a unit of length, the Ancient_Greek_units_of_measurement#Length....
(1 mile) from the Dipylon gates (Kerameikos). The site was rediscovered in the 20th century, in modern Akadimia Platonos

Akadimia Platonos

Akademia Platonos is a subdivision located 3 km west-northwest of the downtown part of the Greece capital of Athens. The area is named after the Plato's Academy in which is an academy that dates back to ancient times....
; considerable excavation has been accomplished and visiting the site is free.

Plato's Academy

What was later to be known as Plato's school probably originated around the time Plato acquired inherited property at the age of thirty, with informal gatherings which included Theaetetus of Sunium

Theaetetus (mathematician)

Theaetetus of Athens, son of Euphronius, of the Athenian deme Sunium, was a classical Greece mathematician. His principal contributions were on irrational number lengths, which was included in Book X of Euclid's Elements, and proving that there are precisely five Platonic solid....
, Archytas

Archytas

Archytas was an Ancient Greece philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and military strategy. He was a scientist of the Pythagorean school and famous for being the reputed founder of mathematical mechanics, as well as a good friend of Plato....
of Tarentum, Leodamas of Thasos

Leodamas of Thasos

Leodamas of Thasos was a Ancient Greece mathematician and a contemporary of Plato, about whom little is known.There are only three known references to Leodamas, two from Proclus's Commentary on Euclid:...
, and Neoclides. According to Debra Nails, Speusippus

Speusippus

Speusippus was an ancient Greece philosopher. Speusippus was Plato's nephew by his sister Potone. After Plato's death, Speusippus inherited the Platonic Academy and remained its head for the next eight years....
"joined the group in about 390." She claims, "It is not until Eudoxus of Cnidos

Eudoxus of Cnidus

Eudoxus of Cnidus was a Ancient Greece astronomer, mathematician, scholar and student of Plato. Since all his own works are lost, our knowledge of him is obtained from secondary sources, such as Aratus's poem on astronomy....
arrives in the mid-380s that Eudemus

Eudemus of Rhodes

Eudemus of Rhodes was an ancient Greek philosopher, and first historian of science who lived from ca. 370 BC until ca. 300 BC. He was one of Aristotle's most important pupils, editing his teacher's work and making it more easily accessible....
recognizes a formal Academy." There is no historical record of the exact time the school was officially founded, but modern scholars generally agree that the time was the mid-380s, probably sometime after 387, when Plato is thought to have returned from his first visit to Italy and Sicily. Originally, the location of the meetings was Plato's property as often as it was the nearby Academy gymnasium; this remained so throughout the fourth century.

Though the Academic club was exclusive, not open to the public, it did not, during at least Plato's time, charge fees for membership. Therefore, there was probably not at that time a "school" in the sense of a clear distinction between teachers and students, or even a formal curriculum. There was, however, a distinction between senior and junior members.

In at least Plato's time, the school did not have any particular doctrine to teach; rather, Plato (and probably other associates of his) posed problems to be studied and solved by the others. There is evidence of lectures given, most notably Plato's lecture "On the Good"; but probably the use of dialectic

Dialectic

Dialectic is a method of argument, which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. The word "dialectic" originates in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato's Socratic dialogues....
was more common.

Many have imagined that the Academic curriculum would have closely resembled the one canvassed in Plato's Republic. Others, however, have argued that such a picture ignores the obvious peculiar arrangements of the ideal society envisioned in that dialogue. The subjects of study almost certainly included mathematics as well as the philosophical topics with which the Platonic dialogues deal, but there is little reliable evidence. There is some evidence for what today would be considered strictly scientific research: Simplicius

Simplicius of Cilicia

Simplicius of Cilicia, lived c. 490-c. 560 AD, was a disciple of Ammonius Hermiae and Damascius, and was one of the last of the Neoplatonism. He was one of the pagan philosophers persecuted by Justinian in the early 6th century, and was forced for a time to seek refuge in the Sassanid empire court, before being allowed back into the Byzantin...
reports that Plato had instructed the other members to discover the simplest explanation of the observable, irregular motion of heavenly bodies: "by hypothesizing what uniform and ordered motions is it possible to save the appearances relating to planetary motions." (According to Simplicius, Plato's colleague Eudoxus was the first to have worked on this problem.)

Plato's Academy is often said to have been a school for would-be politicians in the ancient world, and to have had many illustrious alumni. In a recent survey of the evidence, Malcolm Schofield, however, has argued that it is difficult to know to what extent the Academy was interested in practical (i.e., non-theoretical) politics since much of our evidence "reflects ancient polemic for or against Plato."

Old Academy

Plato's immediate successors as "scholarch

Scholarch

A scholarch is the head of a school. The term was especially used for the heads of schools of philosophy in ancient Athens, such as the Platonic Academy, whose first scholarch was Plato himself....
" of the Academy were Speusippus

Speusippus

Xenocrates

Xenocrates of Chalcedon was a Ancient Greece philosopher, mathematician, and leader of the Platonic Academy from 339 to 314 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato's, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements....
(339-314 BC), Polemo

Polemon (scholarch)

Polemon of Athens was an eminent Platonic philosopher and Plato's third successor as scholarch or head of the Platonic Academy from 314/313 to 270/269 BC....
(314-269 BC), and Crates

Crates of Athens

Crates of Athens was the son of Antigenes of the Thriasian deme, the pupil and friend of Polemon , and his successor as scholarch of the Platonic Academy, perhaps about 270 BC....
(c. 269-266 BC).

Other notable members of the Academy include Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
, Heraclides Ponticus

Heraclides Ponticus

Heraclides Ponticus , also known as Herakleides, was a Greece philosopher who lived and died at Heraclea Pontica, now Karadeniz Eregli, Turkey....
, Eudoxus of Cnidus

Eudoxus of Cnidus

Philip of Opus

Philip of Opus, Greece, was a philosopher and a member of the Platonic Academy during Plato's lifetime. Philip was the editor of Plato's Laws. Philip of Opus is probably identical with the Philip of Medma , the astronomer, who is also described as a disciple of Plato....
, and Crantor

Crantor

Crantor was a Greece philosopher of the Old Academy, born probably about the middle of the 4th century BC, at Soli, Cilicia in Cilicia....
.

Middle Academy

Around 266 BC Arcesilaus

Arcesilaus

Arcesilaus was a Greece philosopher and founder of the Second or Middle Platonic Academy—the skepticism phase of the Academy. Arcesilaus succeeded Crates of Athens as head of the Academy c....
became scholarch. Under Arcesilaus (c. 266-241 BC), the Academy strongly emphasized Skepticism

Philosophical skepticism

Philosophical skepticism is both a Philosophy school of thought and a method that crosses disciplines and cultures. Many skeptics critically examine the meaning systems of their times, and this examination often results in a position of ambiguity or doubt....
. This phase is known as the Second (Diogenes Laërtius

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
) or Middle (also, New) Academy.

Arcesilaus was followed by Lacydes of Cyrene

Lacydes of Cyrene

Lacydes of Cyrene, Greek philosophy, was head of the Platonic Academy at Athens in succession to Arcesilaus from 241 BC. He was forced to resign c....
(241-215 BC), Euander

Evander (philosopher)

Evander , born in Phocis or Phocaea, was the pupil and successor of Lacydes of Cyrene, and was joint leader of the Platonic Academy at Athens together with Telecles....
and Telecles

Telecles

Telecles , of Phocis or Phocaea, was the pupil and successor of Lacydes of Cyrene, and was joint leader of the Platonic Academy at Athens together with Evander ....
(jointly) (205-c. 165 BC), and Hegesinus

Hegesinus of Pergamon

Hegesinus , of Pergamon, an Platonic Academy philosopher, the successor of Evander and the immediate predecessor of Carneades as the leader of the Platonic Academy....
(c. 160 BC).

New Academy

The New or Third (Diogenes

Diogenes Laertius

Carneades

Carneades was a radical skeptic born in Cyrene, Libya and the first of the philosophers to pronounce the failure of metaphysics who endeavored to discover rational meanings in religious beliefs....
, in 155 BC, the fourth scholarch in succession from Arcesilaus. It was still largely skeptical, denying the possibility of knowing an absolute truth.

Carneades was followed by Clitomachus (129-c. 110 BC) and Philo of Larissa

Philo of Larissa

Philo or Philon of Larissa was a Greeks philosopher of the first half of the 1st century BC. He was a pupil of Clitomachus , whom he succeeded as head of the Platonic Academy....
("the last undisputed head of the Academy," c. 110-84 BC). According to Jonathan Barnes

Jonathan Barnes

Jonathan Barnes is a United Kingdom philosopher, translator and historian of ancient philosophy. He taught for 25 years at Oxford University before moving to the University of Geneva....
, "It seems likely that Philo was the last Platonist geographically connected to the Academy."

Around 90 BC, Antiochus of Ascalon

Antiochus of Ascalon

Antiochus , of Ashkelon, , was an Platonism philosopher. He was a pupil of Philo of Larissa at the Platonic Academy, but he diverged from the philosophical skepticism of Philo and his predecessors....
founded a rival "Old Academy," rejecting Skepticism and advocating Stoicism

Stoicism

Stoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early third century B.C. The stoics considered passionate emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a Sage , or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not have such emotions....
.

Neoplatonic Academy

Philosophers continued to teach platonism

Middle Platonism

Middle Platonism was the development of certain philosophy doctrines associated with Plato from approximately 130 B.C. up to and including late 2nd century A.D....
in Athens during the Roman era

Roman era

The Roman Era is a period in Western history, when Ancient Rome was the centre of power of the world around the Mediterranean Sea, where Latin was the lingua franca....
, but it was not until the early 5th century (c. 410) that a revived Academy was established by some leading Neoplatonists

Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonism....
. The origins of Neoplatonist teaching in Athens are uncertain, but when Proclus

Proclus

Proclus Lycaeus , called "The Successor" or "Diadochos" , was a Greek philosophy Neoplatonist philosophy, one of the last major Classical philosophers ....
arrived in Athens in the early 430's, he found Plutarch of Athens

Plutarch of Athens

Plutarch of Athens , was a Greek philosopher and Neoplatonist who taught at Athens at the beginning of the 5th century. He reestablished the Platonic Academy there and became its leader....
and his colleague Syrianus

Syrianus

Syrianus was a Greece Neoplatonist philosopher, and head of Plato's Academy in Athens, succeeding his teacher Plutarch of Athens in 431/432. He is important as the teacher of Proclus, and, like Plutarch and Proclus, as a commentator on Plato and Aristotle....
teaching in an Academy there. The Neoplatonists in Athens called themselves "successors" (diadochoi, but of Plato) and presented themselves as an uninterrupted tradition reaching back to Plato, but there cannot have actually been any geographical, institutional, economic or personal continuity with the original Academy. The school seems to have been a private foundation, conducted in a large house which Proclus eventually inherited from Plutarch and Syrianus. The heads of the Neoplatonic Academy were Plutarch of Athens, Syrianus, Proclus, Marinus

Marinus of Neapolis

Marinus was a Neoplatonism philosopher born in Nablus , Palestine in around 450 AD. He was probably a Samaritan, or possibly a Jew.He came to Athens at a time when, with the exception of Proclus, there was a great dearth of eminent men in the Neoplatonist school....
, Isidore

Isidore of Alexandria

Isidore of Alexandria was a Greece philosopher and one of the last of the neoplatonism. He lived in Athens and Alexandria toward the end of the 5th century AD....
, and finally Damascius

Damascius

Damascius , known as "the last of the Neoplatonism," was the last scholarch of the School of Athens. He was one of the pagan philosophers persecuted by Justinian in the early 6th century, and was forced for a time to seek refuge in the Sassanid empire court, before being allowed back into the Byzantine empire....
. The Neoplatonic Academy reached its apex under Proclus (died 485).

The last "Greek" philosophers of the revived Academy in the 6th century were drawn from various parts of the Hellenistic cultural world and suggest the broad syncretism

Syncretism

Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term may refer to attempts to merge and analogy several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity allowing for an inclu...
of the common culture (see koine): Five of the seven Academy philosophers mentioned by Agathias were Syriac in their cultural origin: Hermias and Diogenes (both from Phoenicia), Isidorus of Gaza, Damascius of Syria, Iamblichus of Coele-Syria and perhaps even Simplicius of Cilicia

Simplicius of Cilicia

At a date often cited as the end of Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, the emperor

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
Justinian

Justinian I

Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus , AD 482 or 483 ? 13 or 14 November 565, was the second member of the Justinian Dynasty and List of Roman Emperors from 527 until his death....
closed the school in 529 A.D. (Justinian actually closing the school has come under some recent scrutiny). The last Scholarch of the Academy was Damascius

Damascius

Agathias

Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus , of Myrina , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor, was a Greece poet and the historian who is a principal source for that part of the reign of Justinian I covered in his history....
, its remaining members looked for protection under the rule of Sassanid king Khosrau I in his capital at Ctesiphon

Ctesiphon

Ctesiphon was one of the great cities of the Persian Empire, located on the east bank of the Tigris.Ctesiphon was an imperial capital of the Arsacids and of their successors, the Sassanids....
, carrying with them precious scrolls of literature and philosophy, and to a lesser degree of science. After a peace treaty between the Persian and the Byzantine empire in 532 guaranteed their personal security (an early document in the history of freedom of religion

Freedom of religion

Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in religious education, practice, worship, and observance....
), some members found sanctuary in the pagan

Paganism

Paganism is the blanket term given to describe religions and spiritual practices of pre-Christian Europe, and by extension a term for polytheistic?traditions or folk religion?worldwide seen from a Western or Christian viewpoint....
stronghold of Harran

Harran

Harran, also known as Carrhae, is a district of Sanliurfa Province in the southeast of Turkey.A very ancient city which was a major Mesopotamian commercial, cultural, and religious center, Harran is a valuable archaeological site....
, near Edessa

Edessa, Mesopotamia

Edessa is the historical name of a Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people town in northern Mesopotamia, refounded on an ancient site by Seleucus I Nicator....
. One of the last leading figures of this group was Simplicius, a pupil of Damascius, the last head of the Athenian school. The students of the Academy-in-exile, an authentic and important Neoplatonic school surviving at least until the 10th century, contributed to the Islamic preservation of Greek science and medicine, when Islamic forces took the area in the 7th century (Thiele). One of the earliest academies established in the east was the 7th century Academy of Gundishapur

Academy of Gundishapur

The Academy of Gundishapur was a renowned academy of learning in the city of Gundeshapur during late antiquity, the intellectual center of the Sassanid empire....
in Sassanid Persia.

Platonic Academy

Site

Plato's Academy

Old Academy

Middle Academy

New Academy

Neoplatonic Academy

See also