PLATONISM. Taken in its broadest sense, Platonism refers to the influence of Plato in Western philosophical, religious, and political thinking. In the Hellenistic world, the vehicle of this influence was the Academy, but from the time of Athens' destruction by the Romans, accomplished by Sulla in 86 BCE, the Academy had ceased to exercise any real influence on Platonic thought. Thereafter, Platonic schools were founded in the most famous cities of the Roman Empire, including Pergamum, Athens, and Alexandria. A Platonic (i.e. Neoplatonic) school continued to exist in Athens until 529 CE, when it was dissolved by the emperor Justinian, but it cannot be called "Academy." Conveyed not only by the writings of Plato himself, but also by the works of later disciples and interpreters belonging to the so-called Middle Platonic and Neoplatonic schools, Platonism influenced Christian and Islamic philosophy in the late classical and medieval eras and underwent...