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46-548: Varro and Ovid traced the observance to the flight of the last king of Rome , Tarquinius Superbus , in 510 BC. In his Fasti , Ovid offers the longest surviving account of the observance: Now I must tell of the flight of the King, six days from the end of the month. The last of the Tarquins possessed the Roman nation, an unjust man, but nevertheless strong in war. Plutarch holds that

92-696: A "voluminous" work De re rustica (also called Res rusticae )—similar to Cato the Elder 's work De agri cultura —on the management of large slave-run estates . The compilation of the Varronian chronology was an attempt to determine an exact year-by-year timeline of Roman history up to his time. It is based on the traditional sequence of the consuls of the Roman Republic —supplemented, where necessary, by inserting "dictatorial" and "anarchic" years. It has been demonstrated to be somewhat erroneous but has become

138-498: A book on architecture. His only complete work extant, Rerum rusticarum libri tres ("Three Books on Agriculture"), has been described as "the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and practised all that he records." One noteworthy aspect of the work is his anticipation of microbiology and epidemiology . Varro warned his readers to avoid swamps and marshland, since in such areas ...there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by

184-649: A formal curriculum. There was, however, a distinction between senior and junior members. Two women are known to have studied with Plato at the Academy, Axiothea of Phlius and Lasthenia of Mantinea . Diogenes Laërtius divided the history of the Academy into three: the Old, the Middle, and the New. At the head of the Old he put Plato, at the head of the Middle Academy, Arcesilaus , and of

230-581: A gymnasium called Ptolemy . Cicero describes a visit to the site of the Academy one afternoon, which was "quiet and deserted at that hour of the day". Despite the Platonic Academy being destroyed in the first century BC, the philosophers continued to teach Platonism in Athens during the Roman era , but it was not until the early fifth century ( c.  410 ) that a revived academy (which had no connection with

276-512: A new phase known as Middle Platonism . When the First Mithridatic War began in 88 BC, Philo of Larissa left Athens and took refuge in Rome , where he seems to have remained until his death. In 86 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla laid siege to Athens and conquered the city, causing much destruction. It was during the siege that he laid waste to the Academy, as Plutarch relates: "He laid hands upon

322-451: A variety of topics. Aside from his many lost works (known through fragments), two endeavors stand out for historians: Nine Books of Disciplines and his compilation of the Varronian chronology . His Nine Books of Disciplines became a model for later encyclopedists , especially for Pliny the Elder ( c.  23 to 79 AD). The most noteworthy portion of the Nine Books of Disciplines

368-514: Is its use of the liberal arts as organizing principles. Varro decided to focus on identifying nine of these arts: grammar , rhetoric , logic , arithmetic , geometry , astronomy , musical theory, medicine, and architecture . Using Varro's list, mediated through Martianus Capella 's early-5th century allegory, subsequent writers defined the seven classical "liberal arts" of the medieval schools. In c.  37 BC, in his old age, Varro wrote on agriculture for his wife Fundania, producing

414-416: Is some evidence for what today would be considered strictly scientific research: Simplicius 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

460-459: The rex sacrorum played as a substitute for the former king of Rome in various religious rituals. The rex held no civic or military role, but nevertheless was bound to offer a public sacrifice in the Comitia on this date. The "flight of the king" was the swift exit the proxy king was required to make from that place of public business. It may be that the two versions are to be reconciled by taking

506-463: The Ilerda campaign of 49 BC. He escaped the penalties of having backed the losing side in the civil war through two pardons granted by Julius Caesar , before and after the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus . Caesar appointed him to oversee the public library of Rome in 47 BC, but following Caesar's death Mark Antony proscribed him, resulting in his losing much of his property, including his library. As

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552-677: The Platonic Academy , and the Academic School , was founded at Athens by Plato circa 387 BC. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum . The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC. The Platonic Academy was destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC. A neo-Platonic academy

598-517: The Reatine plain (reported as near Lago di Ripasottile, ) until his old age. He supported Pompey , reaching the office of praetor , after having served as tribune of the people , quaestor and curule aedile . It is probable that Varro was discontented with the course on which Pompey entered when the First Triumvirate formed c. 60 BC, and he may thus have lost his chance of rising to

644-607: The Republic gave way to the Empire c.  27 BC , Varro gained the favour of Augustus , under whose protection he found the security and quiet to devote himself to study and writing. Varro had studied under the Roman philologist Lucius Aelius Stilo (died 74 BC), and later at Athens under the Academic philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon (died 68 BC). Varro proved a highly productive writer and turned out more than 74 Latin works on

690-437: The "flight" of the rex sacrorum as a reenactment of the expulsion of Tarquinius. This Ancient Rome –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a religious festival is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome 's greatest scholar, and

736-573: 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

782-704: The Academy located on either side of the Cratylus street in the area of Colonos and Plato's Academy (Postal Code GR 10442). On either side of the Cratylus street are important monuments, including the Sacred House Geometric Era, the Gymnasium (first century BC – first century AD), the Proto-Helladic Vaulted House and the Peristyle Building (fourth century BC), which

828-428: The Academy strongly emphasized a version of Academic skepticism closely similar to Pyrrhonism . Arcesilaus was followed by Lacydes of Cyrene (241–215 BC), Evander and Telecles (jointly) (205 – c.  165 BC ), and Hegesinus ( c.  160 BC ). The New or Third Academy begins with Carneades , in 155 BC, the fourth Scholarch in succession from Arcesilaus. It was still largely skeptical, denying

874-434: The Academy were Speusippus (347–339 BC), Xenocrates (339–314 BC), Polemon (314–269 BC), and Crates ( c.  269 –266 BC). Other notable members of the Academy include Aristotle , Heraclides , Eudoxus , Philip of Opus , and Crantor . 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

920-619: The Dioscuri – who were patron gods of Sparta – the Spartan army would not ravage these original "groves of Academe" when they invaded Attica . Their piety was not shared by the Roman Sulla , who had the sacred olive trees of Athena cut down in 86 BC to build siege engines . Among the religious observances that took place at the Akademeia was a torchlit night race from altars within

966-490: The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I banned the teaching; somewhat later he repeated and tightened the ban. Controversial in research is whether there was – as the chronicler Ioannes Malalas claims – a special imperial decree ordering an end to the teaching of philosophy in Athens, or whether it was just a matter of implementing a general ban on teaching people who resisted baptism. The last scholarch of

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1012-590: The Neoplatonic Academy was Damascius (d. 540). According to Agathias , its remaining members looked for protection under the rule of Sassanid king Khosrau I in his capital at Ctesiphon , 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 , their personal security (an early document in

1058-410: The New, Lacydes . Sextus Empiricus enumerated five divisions of the followers of Plato. He made Plato founder of the first Academy; Arcesilaus of the second; Carneades of the third; Philo and Charmadas of the fourth; and Antiochus of the fifth. Cicero recognised only two Academies, the Old and New, and had the latter commence with Arcesilaus. Plato's immediate successors as " Scholarch " of

1104-464: The Roman empire and had been the state religion since the late fourth century, and so the demise of this late antique Platonic school was only a matter of time. Although the Athenian Neoplatonists clearly rejected Christianity and their school was a center of intellectual resistance to the prevailing religion, they remained unchallenged for a surprisingly long time. It was not until 529 that

1150-620: The city to Prometheus' altar in the Akademeia. The road to Akademeia was lined with the gravestones of Athenians, and funeral games also took place in the area as well as a Dionysiac procession from Athens to the Hekademeia and then back to the city. What was later to be known as Plato's school appears to have been part of Academia. Plato inherited the property at the age of thirty, with informal gatherings which included Theaetetus of Sunium , Archytas of Tarentum, Leodamas of Thasos , and Neoclides. According to Debra Nails, Speusippus "joined

1196-516: The consulship. He actually ridiculed the coalition in a work entitled the Three-Headed Monster ( Τρικάρανος in the Greek of Appian , The Civil Wars , II.ii.9). He was one of the commission of twenty that carried out the great agrarian scheme of Caesar for the resettlement of Capua and Campania (59 BC). During Caesar's civil war of 49 to 45 he commanded one of Pompey's armies in

1242-426: The eyes, but which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and cause serious diseases. A modern scholar, Bertha Tilly, assesses Varro's work as follows: For the immense mass of work completed, for his patriotic fervour, his high moral sentiments, for versatility in forms of writing and in subjects, for the vast range of material, Varro towers above all his contemporaries and his successors: he

1288-462: The foundation of the House of Wisdom in 832. The site was rediscovered in the twentieth century, in the modern Akadimia Platonos neighbourhood; considerable excavation has been accomplished and visiting the site is free. The site of the Academy is located near Colonus , approximately 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) north of Athens' Dipylon gates . Visitors today can visit the archaeological site of

1334-415: The group in about 390 BC". She claims, "It is not until Eudoxus of Cnidos arrives in the mid-380s BC that Eudemus 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 BC, when Plato is thought to have returned from his first visit to Sicily. Originally,

1380-517: The historical Academy of Plato. The Akademia was a school outside the city walls of ancient Athens . It was located in or beside a grove of olive trees dedicated to the goddess Athena , which was on the site even before Cimon enclosed the precincts with a wall, and was called Academia after its original owner, Academus , an Attic hero in Greek mythology . Academus was said to have saved Athens from attack by Sparta, revealing where Helen of Troy

1426-496: The history of freedom of religion ) was guaranteed. It has been speculated that the Neoplatonic Academy did not altogether disappear. After his exile, Simplicius (and perhaps some others) may have travelled to Carrhae near Edessa . From there, the students of an Academy-in-exile could have survived into the ninth century, long enough to facilitate an Arabic revival of the neoplatonist commentary tradition in Baghdad , beginning with

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1472-560: The many local wars. The site of the Academy was sacred to Athena; it had sheltered her religious cult since the Bronze Age . The site was perhaps also associated with the twin hero-gods Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri ), since the hero Akademos associated with the site was credited with revealing to the brothers where the abductor Theseus had hidden their sister Helen . Out of respect for its long tradition and its association with

1518-444: The meetings were held on Plato's property as often as they were at the nearby Academy gymnasium ; this remained so throughout the fourth century. Though the academy was open to the public, the main participants were upper-class men. It did not, at least during 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

1564-552: The original Academy) was established by some leading neoplatonists . The origins of neoplatonist teaching in Athens are uncertain, but when Proclus arrived in Athens in the early 430s, he found Plutarch of Athens and his colleague Syrianus 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

1610-431: 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 , Isidore , and finally Damascius . The Neoplatonic Academy reached its apex under Proclus (died 485). Severianus studied under him. The last Greek philosophers of

1656-593: The others, mostly in Gellius' Attic Nights . He was called "the most learned of the Romans" by Quintilian , and also recognized by Plutarch as "a man deeply read in Roman history". Varro was recognized as an important source by many other ancient authors, among them Cicero , Pliny the Elder , Virgil in the Georgics , Columella , Aulus Gellius , Macrobius , Augustine , and Vitruvius , who credits him (VII.Intr.14) with

1702-448: The others. There is evidence of lectures given, most notably Plato's lecture "On the Good"; but probably the use of dialectic was more common. According to an unverifiable story, dated of some 700 years after the founding of the school, above the entrance to the Academy was inscribed the phrase ΑΓΕΩΜΕΤΡΗΤΟΣ ΜΗΔΕΙΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ, "Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter here." Many have imagined that

1748-501: The possibility of knowing an absolute truth. Carneades was followed by Clitomachus (129 – c.  110 BC ) and Philo of Larissa ("the last undisputed head of the Academy," c.  110 –84 BC). According to Jonathan Barnes , "It seems likely that Philo was the last Platonist geographically connected to the Academy." Around 90 BC, Philo's student Antiochus of Ascalon began teaching his own rival version of Platonism rejecting Skepticism and advocating Stoicism , which began

1794-491: The revived Neoplatonic Academy in the sixth century were drawn from various parts of the Hellenistic cultural world and suggest the broad syncretism 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 . Christianity had gained power in

1840-452: The sacred groves and ravaged the Academy, which was the most wooded of the city's suburbs, as well as the Lyceum ." The destruction of the Academy seems to have been so severe as to make the reconstruction and re-opening of the Academy impossible. When Antiochus returned to Athens from Alexandria , c.  84 BC , he resumed his teaching but not in the Academy. Cicero , who studied under him in 79/8 BC, refers to Antiochus teaching in

1886-467: The widely accepted standard chronology, in large part because it was inscribed on the arch of Augustus in Rome; though that arch no longer stands, a large portion of the chronology has survived under the name of Fasti Capitolini . Varro's literary output was prolific; Ritschl estimated it at 74 works in some 620 books, of which only one work survives complete, although we possess many fragments of

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1932-454: Was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Virgil and Cicero ). He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus ('Varro of Rieti') to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus . Varro was born in or near Reate (now Rieti in Lazio) into a family thought to be of equestrian rank. He always remained close to his roots in the area, owning a large farm in

1978-643: Was distinguished for learning as no other man had ever been or was to be. Most of the extant fragments of these works (mostly the grammatical works) can be found in the Goetz–Schoell edition of De Lingua Latina , pp. 199–242; in the collection of Wilmanns, pp. 170–223; and in that of Funaioli, pp. 179–371. Platonic Academy 37°59′33″N 23°42′29″E  /  37.99250°N 23.70806°E  / 37.99250; 23.70806 The Academy ( Ancient Greek : Ἀκαδημία , romanized :  Akadēmía ), variously known as Plato's Academy ,

2024-413: Was hidden, when she had been kidnapped by King Theseus years before the incidents of the later Trojan War . Having thus spared Athens a war (or at least delayed it), Academus was seen as a savior of Athens. His land, six stadia (a total of about one kilometre, or a half mile; the exact length of a stadion varied) north of Athens, became revered even by neighboring city-states, escaping destruction during

2070-533: Was later founded in Athens that claimed to continue the tradition of Plato's Academy. This academy was shut down by Justinian in 529 AD, when some of the scholars fled to Harran , where the study of classical texts continued. In 1462 Cosimo de' Medici established the Platonic Academy of Florence , which helped initiate the Renaissance . In 1926 the Academy of Athens was founded with founding principle tracing back to

2116-554: 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". Around 266 BC Arcesilaus became Scholarch. Under Arcesilaus ( c.  266 –241 BC),

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