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Athenian Choral Institutions And Plato's Ideal Polis, Emma Beachy

Grand Valley Journal of History

This paper discusses the role of choral institutions in Plato’s ideal polis. In the fourth century BC, choral competitions were a key site of political discourse in Athens, exposing the conflicts inherent to the use of aristocratic patronage in a democratic system. As the demos embraced new musical practices, aristocrats critiqued these changes as a proxy for their opposition to democracy itself. Plato, operating firmly within the aristocratic tradition, placed choral education at the center of his ideal polis as a means to restore and cultivate aristocratic power. However, he also sought to use choral music as a means to …