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1227964 No.1227964 [Reply] [Original]

Something more ambitious seems to have been intended in the project with which Plotinus approached the emperor Gallienus, who, with his wife Salonia, held the philosopher in high esteem. Plotinus proposed to revive a 'city of philosophers' that long lay in ruins in Campania, which, if the emperor granted the surrounding land, would be colonized (Plotinus would join, with his companions) and run according to Plato's laws and would be called 'Platonopolis'. Opposition in the court however blocked the project.

What and where was this ruined city of philosophers? A Pythagorean or Neopythagorean community of the kind that once existed in southern Italy? Or perhaps Cicero's 'Academy', now a dilapidated estate near Cumae? What sort of city did Plotinus wish to establish? A kind of pagan monastic community of otherworldly philosophical ascetics? Such an answer is required by the conventional view of the Neoplatonist attitude to politics. Or did Plotinus intend to realize in some way the utopia of Plato's Republic or rather, as the reference to Plato's laws suggests, the city projected in Plato's Laws? These questions must remain unanswered as long as we are unclear about Plotinus' theoretical position on the relation between philosophy and the political life. For whatever reason, the project was not carried out. However, Plotinus remained active, in his philosophical circle in Gemina's household, composing his treatises until, in 268-9, his circle began to disperse, sickness driving him to retirement on Zethus' property, where he continued to write and where he died in 270.

Source: Dominic J. O'Meara, (2005), Platonopolis: Platonic Political Philosophy in Late Antiquity

>> No.1227968

its impossible to create a city with only smart people because you need women to procreate

>> No.1227970

>>1227968

You could sustain a small population with regular new arrivals.

>> No.1227979

>>1227970
it would inevitably become a colony of old bearded man beating each other off

>> No.1227986

>>1227979
So Ancient Greece.