being “wise”; some of them for “moral” and “politic” sentences, and others for the learning of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, which was “astronomy” and “geometry.” But we hear not yet of any “schools” of “philosophy.”
After the Athenians, by the overthrow of the Persian armies, had gotten the dominion of the sea; and thereby of all the islands and maritime cities of the Archipelago, as well of Asia as Europe; and were grown wealthy; they that had no employment, neither at home nor abroad, had little else to employ themselves in, but either (as St. Luke says, Acts 17:21) “in telling and hearing news,” or in discoursing of “philosophy” publicly to the youth of the city. Every master took some place for that purpose. Plato, in certain public walks called Academia, from one Academus: Aristotle in the walk of the temple of Pan, called Lyceum: others in the Stoa, or covered walk, wherein the merchants’ goods were brought to land: others in other places; where they spent the time of their leisure in teaching or in disputing of their opinions: and some in any place where they could get the youth of the city together to hear them talk. And this was it which Carneades also did at Rome, when he was ambassador: which caused Cato to advise the senate to dispatch him quickly, for fear of corrupting the manners of the young men, that delighted to hear him speak, as they thought, fine things.
From this it was that the place where any of them taught and disputed was called schola , which in their tongue signifieth “leisure”; and their disputations, diatribae , that is to say, “passing of the time.” Also the philosophers themselves had the name of their sects, some of them from these their schools: for they that followed Plato’s doctrine were called Academics; the followers of Aristotle Peripatetics, from the walk he taught in; and those that Zeno taught Stoics, from the Stoa; as if we should denominate men from Moorfields, from Paul’s Church, and from the Exchange, because they meet there often to prate and loiter.