In 1906, Wright published The Origin of Plato's Cave, an outgrowth of his interest in the archaeological excavations of the Cave of Vari on Mt. Hymettus near Athens. In this article he deals with the antecedents of the allegory of the cave that the philosopher introduced in the opening of the seventh book of the Republic. Wright demonstrated that the attributes of the allegorical cave closely matched the actual one; he concluded they were likely based on it, with the possible influence of additional elements from the Empedocles' poem Purifications and the Quarry-Grottos of Syracuse.