Unlike his teacher, Socrates, Plato felt that true knowledge was independent of the observer, and not based solely upon inner reflection. To this end, he created an association of philosophers in 387 B.C.E. to study problems concerning morals, mathematics and astronomy. This group gathered in the gardens of an olive grove near ancient Athens called Academy, after the hero Academus who left the land for an Athenian gymnasium. Plato's Academy became famous throughout the ancient world as a center of intellectual thought and peaceful contemplation.
Unfortunately, just as in the modern world, whenever an invasion took place or the government simply changed, the intellectuals were the first attacked. In wave after wave, the Academy wall was destroyed, the garden razed, and the grove chopped down for both the timber and the oil. Surviving long after Plato's death, the Academy was finally disbanded in 526 C.E. by the Roman emperor Justinian. Of course, the word Academy lives on, having come to mean any prestigious place of learning.
