Academy. Plato's school was located in the Academy, a park outside Athens near a shrine sacred to the hero Academus. The Academy was organized as a thiasos (cult dedicated to the Muses) and continued as a philosophical school from its founding by Plato in the fourth century B.C.E. until it was closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 C.E. Plato's followers, therefore, were referred to as Academics. Plato's Academy has sometimes been called the first university, but there were major differences between its structure and that of modern universities. The Academy did not collect fees from students (they considered demanding fees for knowledge immoral), did not offer degrees, diplomas, or other credentials, and did not have any fixed course of instruction (people would join or leave at any age and might remain members for their entire lives). In...