Anaxagoras left behind a student, Archelaus.[28] Probably a native Athenian,[29] Archelaus continued the tradition of his master, seeking naturalistic explanations of phenomena. He held that the separation of the hot from the cold led to a gathering of elemental stuffs with earth at the center, surrounded by water, air, and fire. He believed in a disk-shaped earth which was concave on the upper surface, so that presumably the Mediterranean Sea filled the hollow center. The surface of the earth was marshy at first, but then dried out as the result of heating by the sun. Plants and animals arose spontaneously from the primordial slime, but later began to reproduce sexually. Like Anaxagoras, he believed that cosmic mind played a role in the birth of the world, but his mind was not separate from the stuffs, and the role it did play is not clear. Ancient sources do not talk much about Archelaus, and from what we can tell, he was a second-rate thinker who just added a few eclectic features to Anaxagoras’ philosophy. But he kept philosophical speculation alive in Athens.[30]
Ion of Chios was a rough contemporary of Archelaus. An immigrant to Athens from the island of Chios in Ionia, he made a career as a playwright, lyric and elegiac poet, philosopher, local historian, and social historian.[31] He once won first prize in Athens for a tragedy he wrote. Most significantly for us, he wrote about famous people he had known and about the visits of famous people to his native Ionia. One statement about him stands out; the later biographer Diogenes Laertius records, “Ion of Chios said that while [Socrates] was still young, he traveled to Samos with Archelaus.”[32]
This is the only early report we get of what Socrates did in his youth. This seems to conflict with Plato’s account in one dialogue, when Plato has Socrates say that he never left Athens except on military campaigns.[33] Some scholars have used the authority of Plato to claim that Ion must have been speaking about a military campaign to Samos around 440 to put down a rebellion;[34] while others have supposed Ion confused Socrates with a general of the same name who definitely was on that campaign.[35] But of course, then the Socrates in question could not be young, and Diogenes would have to be completely mistaken about the statement, confusing two people named Socrates. Most importantly, Ion was not a military historian but perhaps the closest thing Athens had to a gossip columnist. He was interested in celebrity news, not military campaigns, and he liked to report visits of famous people to his native Ionia. Since Ion died about 422, his is probably the earliest extant biographical statement about Socrates.[36] If Socrates had been young at the time of the trip, we must put his visit within a few years of 450, when he was old enough to be independent though still too young to travel alone.[37]
As to Plato, he may simply have not been aware of this episode. He knew Socrates only around the last decade of Socrates’ life, and Socrates never bragged about his own accomplishments. Socrates’ early biographer Aristoxenus confirms the connection between Archelaus and Socrates, and even makes the latter the former’s boyfriend.[38]
[28]. Ps.Galen Philosophical History 3; Clement of Alexandria Miscellanies 1.63; Eusebius Preparation for the Gospel 10.14.13; Suda A.4084.
[29]. Diogenes Laertius 2.16; he may also have been from Miletus.
[30].See KRS, ch. 13; Diogenes Laertius 2.16-17; DK 60.
[31].DK 25.
[32].Diogenes Laertius 2.23; cf. Diogenes Laertius 2.19 = Aristoxenus fr. 52a Wehrli; Graham 2008; Patzer 2006; Döring 1998:146.
[33].Plato Crito 52b.
[34].Burnet 1924:91, 205; Woodbury 1971.
[35].Zeller 1922:49n3; Calder 1961; cf. Brickhouse & Smith 1989:18n54.
[36]. There are earlier references to Socrates (see ch. 9*), but these do not tell us any details of his life.
[37].Graham 2008. Patzer 2006:12 puts the date at 452 at the latest.
[38].Aristoxenus frs. 52a, 52b Wehrli. That this report is not a slander, given Greek mores, see Huffman 2012 a:264-265. But Aristoxenus seems to make the relationship occur when Socrates is too old to be a boyfriend by Greek standards, thus slandering him: Patzer 2006:47-50. To make a favorite pupil into a boyfriend is somewhat conventional, as for instance in Zeno of Elea in relation to Parmenides (Plato Parmenides 127b, presented as a rumor).