The Academy (Akademia Platonos) - probably named after the hero Hekademos, who had a cult grove here - lay 1.5 km (1 mi.) north-west of the Dipylon (a double fortified gateway with two inner and two outer towers, see Kerameikos), with which it was linked by a road 40 m (130 ft) wide. From 387 bc onwards this was the meeting-place of Plato and his pupils, the first academy in the world.
Plato's Academy Park Entrance Fee
Excavations in this outlying district of Athens, beyond the railway line, have revealed remains of a square hall (between Efklfdou and Tripoleos streets), immediately north of this a small temple which may have been dedicated to the hero Hekademos, and a large complex of the Roman imperial period built round an inner courtyard.
Here, too, was found a structure measuring 8.5 by 4.5 m (28 by 15 ft) now roofed over, the oldest building so far discovered in Athens, dating from the Early Bronze Age (2300-2100 BC).
From the area of the Academy Tripoleos Street turns north-west to the nearby hill of Kolonos Hippios, which gave its name to the deme (district) of Kolonos, home of the great dramatist Sophocles (496-406 bc) and the setting of his play "Oedipus on Kolonos", written at the age of 90. The hill is now surrounded by a rather poor quarter of Athens. On it are tombstones commemorating two 19th c. archaeologists, Carl Otfried Miiller (1797-1840) and Frangois Lenormant (1837-83).