The Peloponnesian War and its consequences in Athens, the Thirty Tyrants reign, represent a major gap in Athens’s history. Athens’s crisis as a prelude to Plato’s political philosophy In this first step, I will point out how these changes deeply influenced Plato. Plato’s political thought was influenced by the political changes that occurred in the Greek world between the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the fourth century BC. Plato’s Vision on Athens’s Political Crisis Finally, I will show the limits of Plato’s responses to the problem of stasis. ![]() Then, I will present Plato’s response to these problems (especially in the Republic). First, I will clarify what were the main political and military problems due to stasis in Plato’s time. To defend this thesis, I will proceed according to three main steps. More precisely, I will show that Plato’s response to the challenge raised by stasis consists in the elaboration of a new political model of city (called kallipolis and described in the Republic) and in the creation of a class of warriors named “guardians” charged to prevent stasis from happening again. To try to answer this question, I will defend the following thesis: Plato understood that stasis represents a brand new conception of conflict for Athens’s political system and he developed his political philosophy mainly in order to try to solve this problem. This correlation between Athens’s history and Plato’s philosophy is so striking and distinctive that it leads me to ask the following question: is it possible to assume that Plato has tried, in his philosophy, to address some of the most important and challenging problems caused by the political problems of his time? In other words: has Plato’s political philosophy been influenced by the problem of stasis? Plato witnessed a large part of these tragic events and in his works (especially in the Republic and in the Seventh Letter) it is possible to find some profound reflections about the problem of the relation between politics and conflict. The main characteristic of stasis is breaking the balance between the different parts of the city and leading the city to violence and injustice. This event radically changed Athens’s history because the Peloponnesian War had irremediably weakened Athens’s power by causing, within the city, a new form of conflict called “stasis” (often translated, in English, as “civil war”). The main cause of this decline was the Peloponnesian War (431-404) between Athens and its allies (Peloponnesian League) and Sparta and its allies (Delian League). He was a citizen of Athens and he was a contemporary of the political and military decline of this city. Plato was born in approximately 428/427 BC and died approximately 348/347 BC. The goal of this paper will be to present Plato’s response to these political challenges by showing that his response is deeply innovative for his time but also profoundly rooted in a traditional conception of conflict that was already obsolete when he wrote his masterpieces. No political regime was able to establish peace anymore, so Plato needed to create a brand new political system to solve the problems raised by the Peloponnesian War. However, Plato had to face an exigent challenge. Plato’s political thought was developed in this context as a potential answer to this redefinition of conflict as well as the threat of an excessive and radical conception of war. War was less perceived as something positive and more people valued peace and stability. The meaning of conflict moved from polemos, as codified conflict between cities, to stasis, as civil war. This event redefined the relation between war and peace. ![]() Besides this opposition, there was a balance between war and peace during these times and this conception, inherited from the heroic times, lasted until the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. But peace and political stability were also valued: the aim of war was never the total annihilation of the opponent. War was considered as a normal state and peace was seen only as an exception or a temporary truce during a long lasting conflict. In Ancient Greece, the relation between war and peace used to have an ambiguous meaning. ![]() In Ancient Greece, was considered as a normal state and peace was seen only as an exception or a temporary truce during a long lasting conflict.
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