The rulers, like Plato's (Greek), were required to submit to a severe training in order to prepare the way for the education of the other members of the community.
Long after the dissolution of the Order, eminent Pythagoreans, such as Archytas of Tarentum, retained their political influence over the cities of Magna Graecia.

There was much here that was suggestive to the kindred spirit of Plato, who had doubtless meditated deeply on the 'way of life of Pythagoras' (Rep.) and his followers.

Slight traces of Pythagoreanism are to be found in the mystical number of the State, in the number which expresses the interval between the king and the tyrant, in the doctrine of transmigration, in the music of the spheres, as well as in the great though secondary importance ascribed to mathematics in education.
But as in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, he goes far beyond the old Pythagoreans.

He attempts a task really impossible, which is to unite the past of Greek history with the future of philosophy, analogous to that other impossibility, which has often been the dream of Christendom, the attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom of Christ.

Nothing actually existing in the world at all resembles Plato's ideal State; nor does he himself imagine that such a State is possible.