A platonic puzzle - easy for JI folks and tuning theorists

Here's something that has probably mystified (or been ignored by)
Plato scholars and mathematicians for millenia, but should be obvious
to most folks on this list.

In the 'Republic', Plato says that the tyrant is 729 times as bad as
the good man.

Why 729?

I must thank Ernest G McClain for this one. I read it in the
introduction to his book 'The Myth of Invariance'.

-- Dave Keenan

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Keenan" <D.KEENAN@U...> wrote:
> Here's something that has probably mystified (or been ignored by)
> Plato scholars and mathematicians for millenia, but should be
obvious
> to most folks on this list.
>
> In the 'Republic', Plato says that the tyrant is 729 times as bad
as
> the good man.
>
> Why 729?
>
> I must thank Ernest G McClain for this one. I read it in the
> introduction to his book 'The Myth of Invariance'.
>
> -- Dave Keenan

i have his _the pythagorean plato: prelude to the song itself_ here,
if you're interested.