The (Greek) of the Spartans attracted them, that is to say, not the goodness of their laws, but the spirit of order and loyalty which prevailed.
Fascinated by the idea, citizens of Athens would imitate the Lacedaemonians in their dress and manners; they were known to the contemporaries of Plato as 'the persons who had their ears bruised,' like the Roundheads of the Commonwealth.

The love of another church or country when seen at a distance only, the longing for an imaginary simplicity in civilized times, the fond desire of a past which never has been, or of a future which never will be,--these are aspirations of the human mind which are often felt among ourselves.

Such feelings meet with a response in the Republic of Plato.
But there are other features of the Platonic Republic, as, for example, the literary and philosophical education, and the grace and beauty of life, which are the reverse of Spartan.

Plato wishes to give his citizens a taste of Athenian freedom as well as of Lacedaemonian discipline.

His individual genius is purely Athenian, although in theory he is a lover of Sparta; and he is something more than either--he has also a true Hellenic feeling.