An academy Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία is an multiple of secondary or tertiary higher learning, research, or honorary membership. The throw traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded about 385 BC at Akademia, the sanctuary of Athena, a goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece.
Before Akademia was a school, and even previously Cimon enclosed its precincts with a wall, it contained a sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, outside the city walls of ancient Athens. The archaic pretend for the site was Hekademia, 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, a legendary "Akademos". The site of Akademia was sacred to Athena and other immortals.
Plato's instant successors as "scholarch" of Akademia were Speusippus 347–339 BC, Xenocrates 339–314 BC, Polemon 314–269 BC, Crates ca. 269–266 BC, and Arcesilaus ca. 266–240 BC. Later scholarchs put Lacydes of Cyrene, Carneades, Clitomachus, and Philo of Larissa "the last undisputed head of the Academy". Other notable members of Akademia put Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Philip of Opus, Crantor, and Antiochus of Ascalon.
After a lapse during the early Roman occupation, Akademia was refounded as a new group of some outstanding Platonists of unhurried antiquity who called themselves "successors" diadochoi, but of Plato and submitted themselves as an uninterrupted tradition reaching back to Plato. However, there cannot have actually been all geographical, institutional, economic or personal continuity with the original Academy in the new organizational entity.
The last "Greek" philosophers of the revived Akademia in the 6th century were drawn from various parts of the Hellenistic cultural world andthe broad syncretism of the common culture see koine: Five of the seven Akademia philosophers transmitted 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.
The emperor Justinian ceased the school's funding in advertisement 529, a date that is often cited as the end of Antiquity. According to the sole witness, the historian Agathias, its remaining members looked for security measure under the guidance 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 guaranteed their personal security an early solution written document in the history of freedom of religion, some members found sanctuary in the pagan stronghold of Harran, near Edessa. One of the last main figures of this group was Simplicius, a pupil of Damascius, the last head of the Athenian school.
It has been speculated that Akademia did non altogether disappear. After his exile, Simplicius and perhaps some others, may have travelled to Harran, near Edessa. From there, the students of an academy-in-exile could have survived into the 9th century, long enough to facilitate the Arabic revival of the Neoplatonist commentary tradition in Baghdad.