In the Republic, written around 375 BCE, Plato presented an extended dialogue on justice through the device of an ideal city, the kallipolis, governed by philosopher-rulers and divided into ruling, guardian and producing classes. The city was conceived as the soul written large, its harmony resting on each class keeping to its function. Plato proposed a fixed citizen body, common property and education among the guardians, and a settlement deliberately limited in size to preserve unity. The later Laws set out a more practical scheme for a colony of 5,040 households arranged around a central acropolis.
It founded the Western tradition of the ideal city as a model of social order rather than a building plan, a lineage running through Renaissance ideal cities to modern utopias. Its bounded, hierarchically ordered city remained a recurring reference for planners and political theorists.
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