Plato's Academy was the first real institution of higher education in history, although it did not much resemble the university as it is known today. It is important to understand that at this time there was really only one discipline: philosophy. People were doing mathematics and studying poetry, of course, but the very concept of a discipline had not developed yet. The disciplines as they are now known are all offshoots from philosophy, most of which would not separate from philosophy until after the Renaissance, around 1400 c.e. Because there were no other schools, the Academy was a beacon for all the greatest minds of the time, gathering all manner of intellectually curious and adept thinkers.

Aristotle's time at the Academy would have thus been spent studying and teaching not only what are now considered the traditional philosophical subjects of reasoning, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, and political theory but also many subjects that are no longer considered to be philosophy: mathematics, rhetoric, poetics, and what passed for natural science at the time. Indeed, it was in rhetoric that Aristotle first distinguished himself, writing in about 360 BC a dialogue titled Gryllus, in which he attacked the views of a contemporary rhetorician, Isocrates. Curiously, a famous response to this work criticized Aristotle for the time he wasted in collecting proverbs--evidence that by this time he was already hard at work collecting things for analysis and categorization. The work known today as Aristotle's Rhetoric was begun at this time, and he continued to refine those ideas for most of his life. Upon Plato's death in 347, Aristotle left Athens. He traveled around the eastern Aegean and began collecting and studying zoological specimens in earnest. It is not known why he left Athens, but as Plato's star pupil, he would probably have expected to become head of the Academy. He did not. There are stories that tell of him leaving in bitterness and disgrace because of this.

However, there are also stories relating a rising anti-Macedonian sentiment in the Athenians at this time, due to the encroachment of Macedonia into Greek territory. Not being an Athenian citizen--then or ever--Aristotle may have felt uncertain about his safety. . .

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