1.30.1 Before the entrance to the Academy is an altar to Eros, with an inscription indicating that Kharmos was the first Athenian to dedicate an altar to that god. The altar within the city called the altar of Ant-eros they say was dedicated by resident aliens, because the Athenian Meles, spurning the love of Timagoras, a resident alien, ordered him to ascend to the highest point of the rock and cast himself down. Now Timagoras took no account of his life, and was ready to gratify the youth in any of his requests, so he went and cast himself down. When Meles saw that Timagoras was dead, he suffered such pangs of remorse that he threw himself from the same rock and so died. From this time the resident aliens worshipped as Ant-eros the avenging spirit of Timagoras.

1.30.2 In the Academy is an altar to Prometheus, and from it they run to the city carrying burning torches. The contest is while running to keep the torch still lit; if the torch of the first runner goes out, he has no longer any claim to victory, but the second runner has. If his torch also goes out, then the third man is the victor. If all the torches go out, no one is left to be winner. There is an altar to the Muses, and another to Hermes, and one inside to Athena, and they have built one to Hēraklēs. There is also an olive tree, accounted to be the second that appeared.

1.30.3 Not far from the Academy is the tomb [mnēma] of Plato, to whom the god [theos] foretold [pro-sēmainein] that he would be the best [aristos] when it comes to philosophy. The manner of the foretelling [pro-sēmainein] was this. On the night before Plato was to become his pupil Socrates dreamed that he saw a swan [kuknos] fly into his insides [kolpos]. Now the swan is a bird with a reputation for the art-of-the-Muses [mousikē], because, they say, a practitioner-of-the-art-of-the-Muses [mousikos] by the name of Swan [Kuknos] became king of the Ligyes on the other side of the Eridanos beyond the Celtic territory, and after his death by the will of Apollo he was changed into the bird. I am ready to believe that a practitioner-of-the-art-of-the-Muses [mousikos] became king of the Ligyes, but I cannot believe that a bird was generated out of a man.

1.30.4 In this landscape [khōrā] is visible the tower [purgos] of Timon, the only man to see that there is no way to be happy [eudaimōn] except to shun other humans [anthrōpoi]. There is also pointed out a place [khōros] called the Kolōnos Hippios [‘Tumulus of Horses’], the first point in Attica, they say, that Oedipus reached—these things that are said do differ from what is in the poetry [poiēsis] Homer, but they say these things in any case—and an altar [bōmos] of Poseidon Hippios [‘(controller of) horses’], and of Athena Hippiā [‘(controller of) horses’], and a hero-shrine [hērōion] of Peirithoös and Theseus, Oedipus and Adrastos. The grove [alsos] and shrine [nāos] of Poseidon were burned down by Antigonos^* when he invaded Attica, who at other times also ravaged the land of the Athenians.