| Since Aristotle's Metaphysics, scholars have recognized the influence of the Pythagoreans on Plato's ontological theories; less well-known is the impact of the Pythagoreans' theories of rule in the development of Plato's political philosophy. Plato's three visits to Magna Graecia and Sicily (ca. 388, 367, and 361 BCE) exposed the Athenian philosopher to political communities that had been established and given counsel by Pythagorean philosophers since the end of the 6th Century BCE. This exposure catalyzed revisions to Plato's entire philosophical program (pragmateia ) in response to the political and ontological theories of the mathematical Pythagoreans, especially the heretic Hippasus of Metapontion and his followers in Southeastern Italy. Plato's post-Republic works, including the Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Critias, Philebus, Epistles VII and VIII, and Laws , demonstrate Plato's recurring engagement with and adaptation of the philosophical principles---derived from mathematics---of the Pythagoreans Philolaus of Croton and Archytas of Taras, who led the massive Italiote League from 367-361 BCE. Indeed, the political constitutions established by Pythagoreans and other philosophers in Magna Graecia, especially those of Epizephyrian Locri, Thurii, Heracleia Italica, and Taras, provided Plato with models from which to derive his own proposed colonial polity of Magnesia in the Laws. The polity of Magnesia, a mixed constitution of the aristocratic type, finds its closest analogue in Taras, which, as a mixed constitution of the democratic type, presented a competitive political system that was influenced by the philosophy of Plato's friend and rival Archytas. By evoking and modifying the philosophy of "mixture" advocated by the mathematical Pythagoreans, Plato was able to reconcile the ontological schism between Being and Becoming and its political analogues in the "first-best" ideal polity of Kallipolis in the Republicand the "second-best" imitative polity of Magnesia in the Laws, thereby providing both an answer to the problems raised against his Theory of the Forms in the Parmenides and a means to resolve the issue of incommensurability in the city-state. Thus, Plato's entire philosophical program (pragmateia) was demonstrably affected by the ontological and political philosophy of the mathematical Pythagoreans Hippasus of Metapontion, Philolaus of Croton, and Archytas of Taras. |
