"Whether they are philosophers, as proposed in the Republic, or men concerned with the Good, as he likes to pretend in the Laws, ultimate power is concentrated in the hands of the guardians. But Plato did no think of them as hypothetical figures: on the contrary, the guardians already existed, in the wealthy Peloponnese. They were the great sophists Socrates had mentioned in Protagoras, those who used their sophistry not to show off their glory but to hide it. They were the ephors, first example of a wholly godless power. But they didn't let people see that side of them either; on the contrary, not content with all the existing cults, they brought in a new one, to which they were deeply devoted. They built a temple to Fear, close to the communal dining hall. "They didn't honor her as a dark demon to be kept at bay, but because they believed that the State was held together mainly thanks to fear."" (Calasso, 264)
This observation of the politics of Sparta is interesting because it is so similar to the way things work today. Our political decisions are still primarily motivated by fear, whether they be individual or national. The Spartan "guardians" at least did their population the service of admitting that they were keeping everyone under control using fear tactics by building a huge temple to the emotion. Modern leaders are a little more sneaky; they don't broadcast their methods of psychological control to the populace, because that would probably result in an upheaval of the carefully built order, but if one looks hard these forces can still be seen at work.
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