Archelaus I (; ) was king of Macedonia from 413 to 399 BC. He was a capable and beneficent ruler, known for the sweeping changes he made in state administration, the military, and commerce. By the time that he died, Archelaus had succeeded in converting Macedon into a significantly stronger power. The Ancient Greek Thucydides credited Archelaus with doing more for his kingdom's military infrastructure than all of his predecessors together. Biography Family Archelaus was a son of Perdiccas II. Plato, through his interlocutors in Gorgias, wrote that Archelaus murdered his brother Alcetas to gain the throne, but this can not be confirmed. It is speculated that his mother might be the descendant of Gygaea of Macedon and the Persian general Bubares furthermore that she was enslaved and sent back to Macedonia to marry the Macedonian king Perdiccas II of Macedon as a Gesture of good will between the Macedonian state and the Achaemenid Empire. Reign Almost immediately after he took power, Archelaus was faced with a situation which allowed him to completely reverse Macedon's relationship with Athens, which had been a major threat for the past half century. The Athenians experienced a crushing defeat at Syracuse in late 413 during which most of their ships were destroyed. This left the Athenians in desperate need of a huge amount of timber to build new ships and Archelaus in a position to set the price. Archelaus generously supplied the Athenians with the timber they needed. In recognition of this, the Athenians honored Archelaus and his children with the titles of proxenos and euergetes. Archelaus went on to institute many internal reforms. He issued an abundance of good quality coinage. He built strongholds, cut straight roads (important for movement of the military), and improved the organization of the military, particularly the cavalry and hoplite infantry. Culture Archelaus was also known as a man of culture and extended cultural and artistic contacts with southern Greece. In his new palace at Pella (where he moved the capital from the old capital at Aigai), he hosted great poets, tragedians, including Agathon and Euripides (who wrote his tragedies Archelaus and The Bacchae while in Macedon), musicians, and painters, including Zeuxis (the most celebrated painter of his time). Archelaus reorganized the Olympia, a religious festival with musical and athletic competitions honoring Olympian Zeus and the Muses at Dion, the Olympia of Macedon. The greatest athletes and artists