Socrates invites his friend Aristode removed to join him at the dinner in Agathon's house on this second night of celebration. Aristodemus hesitates; he describes, going unbidden to dine himself as a worthless man at the home of a wise man. He worries that Socrates will need to make an apologia for bringing such a common man to dine. As it turns out, no apologia is needed for this pbaulos to become part of the community that meets at Agathon's house. While Socrates remains on a nearby porch in a trance, Aristodemus proceeds to Agathon's house where he finds the door wide open and an unqualified welcome from the host. No distinction is made between the small, ugly Aristodemus and the beautiful, "wise" Agathon and from the warmth of the invitation to enter; there is no sense that this is a "worthless man" entering where he will not be equal to the others. Though we do not receive a report of his speech they are all to participate together in the evening's events.
We see in Aristodemus' entrance to the party a variety of issues that confront all communities, but especially democracies:
Who is included and who is excluded. If we talk about the democratic principle, as Socrates does in Book 8 of the Republic, as an equality that does not discriminate, or as Otanes did orTheseus in Euripides' play did when they placed power en meson ("in the middle"), then how are we to decide who is within the community and who is outside, who is in the middle and who is not, who is welcome to the dinner and who is to be excluded, who is worthless (pbaulos) and who is wise, who is animal and who is human? In the way in which democratic principles function at Agathon's house, at least in the early part of the dialogue, all are welcomed. Distinctions between worthless and wise, superior and inferior, do not determine exclusion or inclusion. The political regime at Athens, though, must exclude. As Manville (199o chap. 7) points out, this was the profound challenge for the new democracy at the end of the sixth century namely, how to clarify who was a citizen and who was not, It was difficult, because the equality principle used to break down old aristocratic principle of family was incapable of articulating precisely how to set those new boundaries. Insofar as Athens must explore its membership laws, it dismisses the democratic principles Socrates identifies in Book 8; and indeed reminds us of the problems we currently face at all our borders about who can be welcomed and who cannot, as we are forced to discriminate against the fundamental principles of democratic equality Once Aristodemus joins the dinner party, we find an easiness and freedom, a certain lackadaisical quality characterizing the relationships between the host and guests and others. Agathon tries to play the master by ordering his servants to bring Socrates from the neighbor's porch to the dinner, but Aristodemus restrains him from forcing Socrates. "Let him be [eate]." he repeats twice (175b) There is to be no compulsion. Socrates will come when it pleases Socrates, not when it pleases Agathon. Freedom is to characterize the evening; Socrates is not compelled to attend the dinner (or to rule). Likewise, a lack of compulsion pervades the dinner.