Plato (428-347 B.c.) was the son of wealthy and powerful Athenian parents. He rejected the political life that had corrupted members of his family and became a student under the famous scholar and philosopher Socrates. The Republic was written at a time when Athens was shaking itself off from its defeat by other Greek city-states in the Peloponnesian War, and when it and other city-states were negotiating the best methods of civic organization and rule.
Athenian democracy. The established political system out of which Plato wrote the Republic was a type of democracy, although Athenian democracy always had an element of aristocratic control about it. The Athenian democracy, which began in 510 B.c., replaced an earlier form of government by individual rulers called tyrannoi, or "tyrants," although the Greek word did not at first have a negative connotation. A tyrant was a man who had overthrown a local aristocracy and seized power in the government illegally. The tyrant's power was closely linked to the general populace who had supported him in his overthrow of the former aristocracy. Some of the early tyrants were strong leaders who provided an effective transition government before the eventual democracy.
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