Sophroniscus
Encyclopedia
Sophroniscus, husband of Phaenarete
Phaenarete
Phaenarete , wife of Sophroniscus, was the mother of the Greek philosopher Socrates and his half-brother, Patrocles. The name Phaenarete means "She who brings virtue to light".Very little is known of the life of Phaenarete...

, was the father of the philosopher Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...

.

Occupation

Little is known about Sophroniscus, and his relationship with his son Socrates. According to tradition, Sophroniscus was by trade a stonemason (a "stone-cutter" or a "stone-polisher"), and enjoyed some margin of success; but neither Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 nor any author before the unreliable historian Duris of Samos
Duris of Samos
Duris of Samos ; probably born around 350 BC; died after 281 BC) was a Greek historian and was at some period tyrant of Samos.- Personal and political life :Duris claimed to be a descendant of Alcibiades, and was the brother of Lynceus of Samos...

 and the satirist Timon of Phlius
Timon (philosopher)
Timon of Phlius was a Greek skeptic philosopher, a pupil of Pyrrho, and a celebrated writer of satirical poems called Silloi . He was born in Phlius, moved to Megara, and then he returned home and married. He next went to Elis with his wife, and heard Pyrrho, whose tenets he adopted...

 - both writing in the 3rd century BCE - mentions the nature of the family's profession. Though Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...

, Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus , was a physician and philosopher, and has been variously reported to have lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens. His philosophical work is the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman skepticism....

, and Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...

 all quote the same passage from Timon, where Socrates is termed a laxoos or lithoxoos in ancient Greek, Timon's work
Silloi
Silloi is a term for a form of philosophical satire or parody in ancient Greek. Silloi are poems written in hexameter; they originated in this form with Timon of Phlius, circa 250 BC, who composed three books of them...

 is polemical and not a serious attempt to transmit literal, historical facts. And Duris, according to Eduard Zeller
Eduard Zeller
Eduard Gottlob Zeller , was a German philosopher and theologian of the Tübingen School of theology.- Life :Eduard Zeller was born at Kleinbottwar in Württemberg, and educated at the University of Tübingen and under the influence of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel...

, seems to have confused Socrates with Phaedo of Elis
Phaedo of Elis
Phaedo of Elis was a Greek philosopher. A native of Elis, he was captured in war and sold into slavery. He subsequently came into contact with Socrates at Athens who warmly received him and had him freed. He was present at the death of Socrates, and Plato named one of his dialogues Phaedo...

.

A passage in Plato's Euthyphro seems to confirm the tradition concerning Socrates' family trade: Socrates is there made to say that Daedalus
Daedalus
In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a skillful craftsman and artisan.-Family:...

 is his ancestor. Daedalus was the mythical founder of Greek sculpture, but Daedalus' media were metal and wood, not stone. So Plato nowhere really confirms Timon's depiction. The simple fact that, in Plato's Apology of Socrates (22c-d), Socrates claims to be unfamiliar with the knowledge of craftsmen and manual artisans suggests that Plato knew nothing of statuary as the family's trade. Xenophon
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...

 also has Socrates speak with craftsmen and statuaries (Memorabilia 3.10), but never has him point out that he's the son of a stonemason himself. So skepticism concerning the tradition is prudent.

Family Connections

According to Plato (in the dialogue Laches), Sophroniscus was a close friend of Lysimachus, son of the illustrious Aristides
Aristides
Aristides , 530 BC – 468 BC was an Athenian statesman, nicknamed "the Just".- Biography :Aristides was the son of Lysimachus, and a member of a family of moderate fortune. Of his early life, it is only told that he became a follower of the statesman Cleisthenes and sided with the aristocratic party...

 the Just, which (presumably) allowed Socrates to become familiar with members of the circle of Pericles
Pericles
Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...

. (Since Plato has Lysimachus refer to Sophroniscus in the past tense, and since the dialogue's dramatic date is not long after the battle of Delium
Battle of Delium
The Battle of Delium or of Delion took place in 424 BC between the Athenians and the Boeotians, and ended with the siege of Delium in the following weeks.-Prelude:...

, we may safely infer that Sophroniscus was dead by 424.) The fact that one of Socrates' sons - but not his eldest son Lamprocles
Lamprocles
Lamprocles was Socrates' and Xanthippe's eldest son. His two brothers were Menexenus and Sophroniscus. Lamprocles was only a lad at the time of Socrates' trial and death...

 - was named after Sophroniscus suggests that Sophroniscus was the less illustrious of the two grandfathers (John Burnet
John Burnet (classicist)
John Burnet was a Scottish classicist.-Education, Life and Work:Burnet was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh, and Balliol College, Oxford, receiving his M.A. degree in 1887...

 1911, Plato: Phaedo, p. 12) - that the father of Socrates' wife, Xanthippe
Xanthippe
Xanthippe was the wife of Socrates and mother of their three sons: Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus. There are far more stories about her than there are facts. She was likely much younger than Socrates, perhaps by as much as forty years.-Name:...

, was named Lamprocles and had a more impressive pedigree than even Sophroniscus. All this suggests that Socrates' inherited social status was in fact much higher than is traditionally recognized.
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