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Plato, like the old painters, retains the traditional form, and

like them he has also a vision of a city in the clouds.

There is yet another thread which is interwoven in the texture of

the work; for the Republic is not only a Dorian State, but a

Pythagorean league. The 'way of life' which was connected with

the name of Pythagoras, like the Catholic monastic orders, showed

the power which the mind of an individual might exercise over his

contemporaries, and may have naturally suggested to Plato the

possibility of reviving such 'mediaeval institutions.' The

Pythagoreans, like Plato, enforced a rule of life and a moral and

intellectual training. The influence ascribed to music, which to

us seems exaggerated, is also a Pythagorean feature; it is not to

be regarded as representing the real influence of music in the

Greek world. More nearly than any other government of Hellas, the

Pythagorean league of three hundred was an aristocracy of virtue.