Plato was born during the Peloponnesian War and was twenty-three years old when it ended. Aristotle was thirteen when the Spartans lost the battle of Leuctra, ending their role as the superior military power of Greece. I contend that both Philosophers were biased against Sparta for several reasons. In the first place, as Athenians, they would naturally think their own political system was the best. Secondly, both of them (particularly Plato) would have reason to resent Sparta for the Peloponnesian War and its occupation of Athens. Thirdly, they both had reason to reject the Spartan political system as too radical because it stifled the kind of independent thought they believed was important to mankind. The Spartan system did not fit their concept of the ideal political system – it wasn’t a monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy.
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