ABSTRACT
The startling aspect of Plato's thinking is the demand that his governing class should live a communal life, eschew family life in the ordinary sense, and be deprived of personal property. Critics who viewed Plato under the pure light of reason and the impure light of prejudice have used this prescription of his to defend the most opposite social institutions. He enjoined the common possession of women for the "guards", but under the strictest sort of control. The social function of the Spartiates was from the time forward to act as an occupying garrison and a military caste, exercising police surveillance over Sparta's conquered territories and peoples. Furthermore, all Spartiates were given an equal voice in the "popular" assembly. Sparta women enjoyed important privileges, prerogatives which were actually codified into a definite system of law. The Messenians, the non-Dorian native population living to the south of Sparta revolted against the conquerors and succeeded in defying Sparta for many years.
