Plato's ideal city is held together by a myth its own rulers invented
In The Republic, Plato proposes that rulers of his ideal city teach citizens a founding myth: that they were all born from the earth with gold, silver, or bronze mixed into their souls, fixing their social rank from birth. He openly calls this story a fiction, useful because it makes people accept their place without question. The idea gave later political philosophy the term 'noble lie' for deception a government tells for a supposedly greater good.