Cynosarges

Cynosarges (Κυνόσαργες). A place in the suburbs of Athens, where the school of the Cynics was held. It derived its name from a white dog (κύων ἀργός), which, when Diomus was sacrificing to Heracles, snatched away part of the victim. It was adorned with several temples. The most remarkable thing in it, however, was the Gymnasium, where all strangers, who had but one parent an Athenian, had to perform their exercises, because Heracles, to whom it was consecrated, had a mortal for his mother and was not properly one of the immortals. Cynosarges is supposed to have been situated at the foot of Mount Anchesmus.