Editing Gemistos Plethon (section)

===Reform of the Peloponnese===
Believing that the [[Peloponnese|Peloponnesians]] were direct descendants of the [[Hellenistic Greece|ancient Hellenes]], Plethon rejected Justinian's idea of a [[universal Empire]] in favour of recreating the [[Hellenistic civilization]], the zenith of [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] influence.<ref>James Henderson Burns, ''The Cambridge history of medieval political thought c. 350–c. 1450,'' [[Cambridge University Press]], 1988.</ref> In his 1415 and 1418 pamphlets he urged [[Manuel II Palaiologos|Manuel II]] and his son [[Theodore II Palaiologos|Theodore Palaiologos]] to turn the peninsula into a cultural island with a new constitution of strongly centralised monarchy advised by a small body of middle-class educated men. The army must be composed only of professional native Greek soldiers, who would be supported by the taxpayers, or "[[Helots]]" who would be exempt from military service. Land was to be publicly owned, and a third of all produce given to the state fund; incentives would be given for cultivating virgin land. Trade would be regulated and the use of coinage limited, barter instead being encouraged; locally available products would be supported over imports. Mutilation as a punishment would be abolished, and chain gangs introduced. Homosexuals and sexual deviants would be burnt at the stake. The social and political ideas in these pamphlets were largely derived from Plato's ''Republic''. Plethon touched little on religion, although he expressed disdain for monks, who "render no service to the common good". He vaguely prescribed three religious principles: belief in a supreme being; that this being has concern for mankind; and that it is uninfluenced by gifts or flattery. Manuel and Theodore did not act on any of these reforms.<ref name="CambridgePolitical"/>