Plato
Walked away from Athenian politics after Socrates's execution and founded the Academy instead.
The episode
Plato grew up expecting a political career in Athens — until politics killed his teacher. In 399 BC a court condemned Socrates, the man Plato considered the wisest and most just he knew, to death by hemlock. Disgusted, Plato concluded that existing states were ruled beyond remedy and left Athens, traveling for years among the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily. Around 387 BC he returned and made a founder's decision: instead of seeking office, he opened a school in a grove sacred to the hero Academus — the Academy, a community devoted to mathematics, dialectic and philosophy. It operated for centuries and held Aristotle as a student for twenty years. One execution turned a would-be politician into the founder of Western philosophy's most influential school.
The move — copy this today
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