Agathon was the son of Tisamenus, and the lover of Pausanias, with whom he appears in both the "Symposium" and Plato's "Protagoras". Together with Pausanias, he later moved to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who was recruiting playwrights; it is here that he probably died around 401 BC. Agathon introduced certain innovations into the Greek theater: Aristotle tells us in the "Poetics" (1456a) that the characters and plot of his "Anthos" were original and not, following Athenian dramatic orthodoxy, borrowed from mythological or historical subjects. Agathon was also the first playwright to write choral parts which were apparently independent from the main plot of his plays.