Academus
Ἀκάδημος
(Ἀκάδημος), an Attic hero, who, when Castor and Polydeuces invaded Attica to liberate their sister Helen, betrayed to them that she was kept concealed at Aphidnae. For this reason the Tyndarids always showed him much gratitude, and whenever the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica, they always spared the land belonging to Academus which lay on the Cephissus, six stadia from Athens. (Plut. Thes. 32; D. L. 3.1.9.) This piece of land was subsequently adorned with plane and olive plantations (Plut. Cim. 13), and was called Academia from its original owner.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.