Free John Maddox Roberts - [SPQR Roman Mysteries 8.5] - An Academic Question by John Maddox Roberts Page A

contains some wonderful sculptures.'
    That was more like it. The last thing I wanted to do was listen to boring old philosophers jabbering at one another, but a fine garden is always a delight to any Roman's heart.
    'I will be most happy to be your guide,' Androcles said. Philosophers always have their hands out for a tip.
    'The Academy,' Androcles said, 'takes its name from Academus, a hero of the Trojan War. He first planted this grove, and willed it to his native city, Athens.'
    We were strolling along outside the city, alongside the river Cephissus. It was more a creek than a river. Like Rome, Athens has spilled outside its old walls and we were not in open country, but rather in a sort of suburb called the Ceramicus, because many of the city's potters had their homes and workshops there. I had given Hermes the day off.
    'That was one influential group of veterans,' I said. 'Every city I've ever visited was founded by a Trojan fleeing the sack of Troy or else by someone who fought there on the Greek side.'
    'So it seems. The Trojan prince Aeneas founded Rome, according to legend.'
    'That's how the story goes,' I said. 'There is ample room for scepticism, but it may soon be inadvisable to voice doubts.'
    'Why should that be?'
    'Because Julius Caesar himself claims descent from the goddess Venus by way of Aeneas. Casting doubts upon the ancestry of Caesar is a poor idea these days.'
    'I shall keep that in mind. Ah, here we are.' We stood before a life-sized statue whose inscription identified it as Plato. This was not one of the wonderfully polished and refined sculptures of the city but a rather plain chunk of marble with a coarse finish. In keeping with philosophical simplicity, no doubt.
    The statue stood by an equally simple gate in a stone wall perhaps eight feet high. We passed within and I gazed with some awe, which I took pains to conceal, on the most perfect outdoor setting of my long and varied experience.
    The Academy was not at all what I had expected. In my mind I had pictured a garden about the size of a typical country villa's, with a circle of stone seats in the centre where students could listen to the harangues of a teacher and pretend that they weren't bored to death. Instead I discovered a varied grove as big as a good-sized farm, landscaped in low hills so that you could not see the whole thing, but every turn in the many paths revealed a view that made the breath catch in your throat. Light and shade were perfectly balanced, with trained vines arching upon arbors over many of the paths, trimmed so that you could always see through them and plenty of sunlight was available.
    Classes took place mostly in little clearings where the students simply sat on the soft grass, though some energetic teachers walked about as they spoke, their students following. Many of these students gave every evidence of paying attention.
    The sculptures were small, exquisite, and widely spaced 'so that they become objects of contemplation, rather than distraction,' Androcles explained.
    We rounded a curve and came upon a gymnasium where fifty or sixty naked young men ran, wrestled, jumped, played ball or swam in a pool that looked like the jewel of a god dropped there and forgotten. I had not imagined that the Academy included physical pursuits but Androcles explained that Plato had insisted that it was useless to cultivate the mind if the body was not given equally rigorous training.
    There is this to be said about the noble youth of Athens: they are
beautiful
. I had heard this phenomenon described by Cicero, but had never quite believed it. I looked them all over and could not perceive a flaw anywhere. Compared to them, a similar muster of young Romans of my own class on the Campus Martius was a festival of ugliness. I have never shared the Greek erotic fascination with boys, but in this place I could understand its appeal.
    'What do you do in these parts?' I asked my guide. 'Drown the ugly ones at birth?'
    'In Athens,' he