Academos
Akademos or Hekademos ( ancient Greek Ἀκάδημος or Ἑκάδημος ) was an Athenian hero . He saved - as reported by Plutarch in his Theseus - Biography - the city from destruction by Helena's twin brothers Castor and Pollux.
history
The 50-year-old widowed Theseus kidnapped the 12-year-old beauty Helena and hid it in Aphidnai . In his absence the brothers threatened to destroy Athens . Akademos knew the hiding place and disclosed it to the Dioscuri in order to avert further damage. So it came about that he was venerated as the savior of Athens, as patron and patron. A sacred grove was dedicated to him at the gates of Athens, in the north-west of the city. According to legend, he was buried there. According to one version of Herodotus , the twin brothers learned the whereabouts of Helen from the décolleté .
Plato bought the olive grove around 388 BC. And made Chr. Him the first " Philosophical Garden " to a discussion forum for its many students to have. A little later he built a school building there , which - according to the name of the grove - was called the "Academic School" and later the Platonic Academy . The current name for learned societies is derived from this abbreviation .
literature
- Julius Adolf Bernhard : Academos . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, column 204 ( digitized version ).
- Leonhard Schmitz : Academus . In: William Smith (Ed.): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . tape 1 : Abaeus – Dysponteus . Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1870, p. 2 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).