Akademos

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For the car rally, see Akademos Rally

A legendary hero in Greek mythology, Akademos (originally Hekademos or, less correctly, Academus, or Hecademus) was linked to the archaic name for the site of Plato's Academy, the Hekademeia, outside the walls of Athens. The site was sacred to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and other immortals; it had sheltered her religious cult since the Bronze Age, which was perhaps associated with the hero-gods, the Dioskouroi (Castor and Polydeukes), for the hero Akademos associated with the site was credited with revealing to the Divine Twins where Theseus had hidden Helen of Troy. By classical times the name of the place had evolved into the Akademeia and was explained by linking it to an eponymous Athenian hero, a legendary "Akademos", at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC.

Akademeia was the source of the word "academy". The expression "The Grove of Academe" goes back to the sacred site of Hekademos where the cult had once taken place in an olive grove sacred to Athene.