About the time when the Euthydemus is set, Socrates seems to have received a remarkable invitation. He was invited to join the court of Archelaus, King of Macedonia (no relation to the philosopher of the same name Socrates studied with, ch. 4*). The king reigned over much of northern Greece. He and his people were regarded by the Greeks as barbarians, but Archelaus was making a concerted effort to import Greek culture into his kingdom. He assembled a circle of the best artistic and literary talent Greece had to offer—and that his money and patronage could buy. Among them were Timotheus of Miletus, an award-winning lyre-player and composer of dithyrambs (ecstatic choral odes); Zeuxis of Heraclea, a renowned painter who went on to decorate the palace of Archelaus; Choerilus of Samos, an epic poet who wrote about the Persian War; Agathon the prize-winning poet, host of the dinner party celebrated in Plato’s Symposium (ch. 16*); and the great tragedian Euripides, friend and intellectual rival of Socrates (ch. 9*).[18] It was not unusual for kings and tyrants to patronize the arts and bring celebrities to their courts as evidence of their good taste, wisdom, and culture. But Archelaus outdid himself in the quality of his clients. Yet one thing he still lacked: a philosopher.
That he extended an invitation to the barefoot philosopher indicates both his discernment as a talent scout and Socrates’ growing reputation as an intellectual. There was, indeed, no one quite like the barefoot philosopher, an original wise man with an important message. Whether Socrates would have fit in with the court of a king is another matter. For he obviously lacked the respect of noble persons and the obsequiousness that would endear him to a royal master. In any case, Socrates offered a tactful reply to the king. “It is disgraceful,” Aristotle reports him saying, “to be unable to return favors just as it is to be unable to return slights.”[19]
Later the Roman philosopher Seneca (tutor to, then advisor of, and finally victim of, the emperor Nero) pointed out that Socrates could have paid Archelaus back in his thanks, or even better, in sharing his wisdom with the monarch.[20] But that is to miss the deeper reasons Socrates had for declining the invitation. In the first place, Socrates felt a sense of mission to the people of Athens. He was, as he would say at his trial (see chs. 24-25*), placed at his post by the god, and to abandon the assignment would be for him an act of impiety and injustice.
Further, there was the whole issue of the king’s legitimacy. In Plato’s Gorgias, the sophist Polus holds up King Archelaus as a paradigm case of a successful and happy ruler. Socrates asks about the king’s moral character. Polus explains that he was the son of a slave-girl who belonged to the brother of King Perdiccas (II) of Macedonia. After the death of Perdiccas, Archelaus entertained the king’s brother and his master, Alcetas and Alcetas’s son, promising to help the former become king; whereupon he murdered the two heirs to the throne. He then played with Perdiccas’ son, the crown prince, a boy of seven, and, when no one was looking, threw him down a well to drown him. With all the rightful heirs out of the way, Archelaus, illegitimate son of Perdiccas, usurped the throne and lived happily ever after.[21] (Subsequent to Polus’ report, however, Archelaus got his comeuppance when he was murdered by two lovers, having reigned from 413 to 399).[22]
Socrates, maintaining that justice and virtue are necessary and sufficient for happiness, replies that anyone who acts wickedly is miserable, and all the more so for not receiving punishment and correction for his crimes.[23] In the Gorgias much of the political commentary seems to come from Plato’s reflections on the later plight of Socrates—and of the Athenian state (see ch. 33*). But Plato relies on strictly Socratic principles in rendering his judgment of Archelaus and similar rulers who gain power and keep it by violence and oppression. Though Socrates apparently did not dwell on political issues, he surely would have been aware of the Macedonian king’s reputation. Even if Archelaus built his kingdom into the formidable power that would be wielded by his successors, even if he surrounded himself with the greatest talents of Greece, he was a wicked man.[24] Socrates would have nothing to do with the king, for all the prestige and wealth he could lavish on the philosopher. For happiness is not, after all, about power, wealth, and reputation, but about virtue. Again Socrates showed by his deeds his commitment to moral principles.
He could not be bought.
[18]. See Aelian Historical Miscellany 2.21, 13.4, 14.17.
[19].Aristotle Rhetoric 1398a24-26.
[20].Seneca On Benefits 5.6.2-7.
[21].Plato Gorgias 471a-c.
[22].ps.Plato Alcibiades II, 141d-e.
[23].Plato Gorgias 470e-471a, 472e; cf. 479e, 525d-e.
[24].Thucydides 2.100.2; see Döring 1998: 149.