Urban Fiction – Strolling through Ideal Cities from Antiquity to the Present Day

2. Antiquity (p. 16)

Plato (428/427–348/347 BC). The Republic (Politeia, c. 400 BC)

Plato at first explains the idea of the city, of society, to us. For one thing, in The Republic we are not moving through streets and squares, past splendid, ornate houses and temples. The form of what Plato considers the best state is architecturally invisible, it is a building of human virtues. The foremost of these is justice, which will bring well-being to the politei – the citizen. The state also needs to exist as an idea.

And Plato teaches us the manifold nature of Eros in society: a thoughtful love for beauty, the urge for truth and knowledge, the passion of the senses. Human beings must emulate the fundamental virtues that correspond to the three parts of the psyche: The attribute of the rational part is the striving for knowledge, the virtue of wisdom, the attribute of the will to self-assertion is bravery, manliness, and that of the capacity for desire is presence of mind and justice. To correspond to the three parts of the psyche there are three estates: craftsmen, farmers, warriors, or, seen from a different perspective, the teaching profession, agriculture, and the military profession. Another trinity is based on the tripartite nature of the function of the psyche to which the estates and the parts of the bodies are assigned: Spirit – head – ruler, courage – breast – guardian, desire – belly – worker. And Plato offers us yet another synopsis: Learning – truth – knowledge – philosophy. Wanting – power – fame – victory. Love – desire – enjoyment – public spirit. The wellsprings of all human evils are the craving for money and possessions, and the struggle for women. In principle authority must not be abolished – but we ask ourselves who is to be the ruler. Plato gives us the answer: »If philosophers do not become kings in the states, or those who are now called kings and rulers do not become true and genuine philosophers, and if state power and philosophy are not one and the same, then there will be no end to evils for the states and probably also for the human race, and the state, too, will probably fail to thrive and see the light of day.«

Although Plato’s state primarily exists as an idea, the city-state takes a concrete shape, though only as a utopia, and Plato guides us through a perfectly planned city. We are on the island of Crete, amazed that the city has no defense wall. Yet this is understandable: It is a city of peace. Yet in principle Plato is not opposed to the building of walls: »If people absolutely have to have a wall, the construction of private housing may, from the outset, be designed in such a way that the entire city forms a single ring of wall in which all the residential buildings have the same design and stand on the same line, thus providing good protection in the direction of the streets, on the one hand, when the entire city looks like a single building, the view is very lovely, and also this makes it easier to guard the city and thus gives each individual and the community as a whole considerably more security.«