Slobodan Dušanic

The author of the second book of the Politics sees in the Platonic isonomia – to be exact, in the isonomous federal state – nothing more than a union warranting the numerical preponderance of the centre, in a way similar to what a tribe or an alliance used to do. The two constitutional forms, ethnos and summachia, probably found their place in Plato’s Realpolitik thinking as early as his discussion, within the Academy, of the theoretical aspects of isonomia. Notably the theme of summachia must have been important for his notions about the isonomia, in view of his barbarophobe patriotism. The passages from the Timaeus-Critias, the Laws (with clear parallels in the Minos), and the Letters, analyzed in this article, show that, during the 350’s and the following years, Plato and the Academy were deeply interested in the problems of federalism and related facts of life such as isonomous communities.