Plato's Influence On Sparta

Around 427 BCE, the philosopher Plato was born in Athens as a part of a noble Athenian lineage, although as time went on, an admiration for Sparta began to grow in Plato’s ideal state or government. This tendency to Sparta would have been caused by the trial of his teacher, Socrates, in which the Athenian democracy condemned him to kill himself by drinking hemlock poison due to accusations of impiety and corrupting the youth in Athens. Another reason of why Plato based his political ideas on Sparta is because he saw the Spartan government as a more organized model of the social structure and community characteristics, based on militarism and political authoritarianism. Plato Influenced by the Spartan form of government, Plato developed and …show more content…
Plato considered that the education received in the first years was fundamental to the development of the individual. Children, in general, are to receive an education that followed the correspondent order: gymnastics and arts. Only the children characterized by their intelligence and bravery who persist and persevere on their studies will be eligible to follow the philosopher’s path of education. The children that could not adapt or lose the interest to their studies would pass to be part of the class of the workers: “the best will be those who get together with the best, and the worst to the contrary” (Republic, 459a). Ultimately, be part of the future class of the governors. At first, they are to undergo an educative process, in which they will starting learning mathematics and will finalize with dialectic. After that, they will continue their education enlisting in the military service and serving the civil service. Later on, when they reach a superior theoretical knowledge, which means possessing the understanding of the idea of the good and of insubstantial values such as justice, beauty, truth and moderation (Republic, 501b, 517b), the task of governing will devolve upon these new