Platone e la Persia

In the ancient world, the contrast between two cultures as distant as the Greek and Persian cultures has been the subject of endless bibliography in numerous fields of research. However, within the Hellenic political landscape, intellectual positions were never unique and diversified greatly between the 5th and 4th centuries. This essay attempts to analyze, from a historical and political perspective, the reasons behind Plato’s reconsideration of the Persian royal model in Book III of the Laws. Monarchy is a form of government that finds its most authentic reference in the Persia of Cyrus. While emphasizing this element, however, Plato highlights the inadequacy of the educational process, which would ultimately be the main cause of the dissolution of that enormous empire. Furthermore, in Plato’s more mature thinking, it is also possible to glimpse a desire for a restructuring of the constitutional paradigm that differs both from the Republic and, in part, from the Politic.