ABSTRACT
Abigeius, Roman chariot horse, early second century ce. Abigeius was part of teams diocles drove to 445 victories, including 103 in one year.
Academy, Athenian gymnasium. Located in the grove sacred to the hero Hecademus in Athens’s northwest suburbs, the Academy was likely a place for exercise from the sixth century bce. (Traditions link it with the sons of the tyrant Pisistratus.) Its development as Athens’s first major athletic facility was owed to the largesse of the fifth-century political leader Cimon, its fame in the history of culture to Plato’s choice of it as a place to meet students. A house he built nearby became the centre of his famous school, the Academy. Most extant archaeological remains – a palaestra, baths, dressing rooms – are of Hellenistic or Roman date. Aside from exercise, the Academy’s grounds served as a site for equestrian processions and exercise (including the anthippasia) and as the starting-point for torch races at the panathenaea and other festivals.
