The Akademia was a school outside the city walls of ancient Athens. It was located in or beside a grove of olive treesThucydides. ii:34. dedicated to the goddess Athena, which was on the site even before Cimon enclosed the precincts with a wall,Plutarch. Life of Cimon, xiii:7. and was called Academia after its original owner, an Attic hero in Greek mythology.The archaic name for the site was Ἑκαδήμεια (Hekademia), which by classical times evolved into Ἀκαδημία (Akademia), which was explained, at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it to "Akademos", a legendary Athenian hero. Academus was said to have saved Athens from attack by Sparta, revealing where Helen of Troy 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 kilometer, or a half mile, the exact length of a stadion varied) north of Athens, became revered even by neighboring city-states, escaping destruction during the many local wars.
