ABSTRACT
Classical Greek culture is the acme of mimesis in cultural history. It is the culture that is much more decisively and consistently mimetic than any of the others in the Axial Age. The Greek word "mimesis" was, however, a somewhat late arrival into the vocabulary. According to the metaphysical theory of politics put forward by Eric Voegelin, Plato's doctrine of legitimacy is based on the notion of the representation of the Truth as set out in the Republic. "Man will be in the truth of his existence when he has opened his psyche to the truth of God; and the truth of God will become manifest in history when it has formed the psyche of man into receptivity for the unseen measure. Plato's four-by-four square mimetic matrix spells out the core of his system, the heart of his Republican philosophy.
