Wild Animals - the Theatre - Gods. Plato's 'Virtue' and Aristotle's 'Golden Mean', or Classical Theses about Ethics and Politics, or Antitheses about Mimesis

An analysis of the Platonian concept of virtue, Aristotle's 'golden mean', and the role played by them in moulding the socio-political reality of Greece. The author ponders on the place assigned to man in the conceptual structure spanning between two extremities defined as 'wild animals' or 'gods'. Within this context he reflects on the social function of politics, which in its capacity as an ideological yardstick and a practically applied virtue defines the conditions of the relations between itself and the other arts, the most prominent being mimesis and tragedy.