The Roman world was a shadowy copy of the much revered Greek ethos.
The civilization of Ancient Greece stood as a superlative to be emulated.
Any survey of Roman religion will quickly reveal they used Greek religion as a template while merely changing the names of the
Greek gods.
The Greek vocabulary was vastly superior to any other tongue. The Greeks, it was said, had a word for everything. The Greeks had considered anybody who did not speek Greek to be Barbarian. (The word "barbarian" is making fun of how foreign language sounded to the Greek ear: ...bar bar bar...) In other words: gibberish.
The man on the street all across the empire would need to speek Greek to be considered nominally educated.
Alexander the Great had been so idolized as a military genius and Alexander's passion to spread Greek civilization so rabid that the success of his campaigns was enough to earn the envy and admiration of even his conquered foes. Rome was not an innovative entity but learned from copying the best of everything else. They ultimately mirrored Greece as far as it made them successful.
Tarsus was conquered by Alexander in 333 BCE, who then almost died there after bathing in the Seyhan. The area is decidedly unhealthy for those accustomed to the cool mountains of Macedonia. Tarsus was becoming Hellenized before the arrival of Alexander, and proceeded at an accelerated pace after. When Alexander quit the town, he first met Darius, the Persian king, on the plains of Issus, just east of Tarsus. Alexander of course defeated Darius soundly, going on to conquer the ‘world’.
After the Seleucids came to power in Syria, Tarsus fell under their control. Losing out to Antioch as the capital of the Seleucid empire, Tarsus was relegated to the shadows as a frontier town. While this allowed them considerable self-government, they still smarted. Tarsus boasted literary schools which were ‘world class’, rivaling those in Athens and Alexandria. In c.171 BCE, Antiochus IV gave the control of Tarsus to his mistress, the height of ignominy to it’s inhabitants. The residents, for whatever reason, revolted and Antiochus IV granted them independence while remaining their ‘ruler’. Under the Seleucids, Tarsus was called "Antiochia on the Cydnus". Tarsus was visited by Caesar, was the meeting place of Antony and Cleopatra, and is the burial place of Julian. Pompey subjected it to Rome. The next two centuries saw it at it’s height, prosperous, cultured, proud of its Greekness, and containing a group of philosophers and an important university as well. The city's main source of income was the linen industry. Even in the flourishing period of Greek history it was a city of some considerable consequence. In the civil wars of Rome it took Caesar's side, and on the occasion of a visit from him had its name changed to Juliopolis. http://www.ancientroute.com/cities/Tarsus.htm
Greek philosophy was permeated by the foundational mysticism of Plato--but---contrasted by the rationality of Aristotle.
Greek philosophy split into two distinct schools of thought which ultimately became SCIENCE: ARISTOTLE and MYSTICISM: PLATO.
But I can't see where Paul got his belief from Plato
PAUL WAS A MYSTIC!
Had Paul been rational he would have been influenced more by Aristotle.