Sophroniscus (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Σωφρονίσκος, ''Sophroniskos''), husband of Phaenarete, was the father of the philosopher

Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...

Occupation

Little is known about Sophroniscus and his relationship with his son Socrates. According to tradition, Sophroniscus was by trade a stonemason or sculptor. Plato scholars

Thomas Brickhouse Thomas C. Brickhouse (born 1947) is an American philosopher and John Turner Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus at the University of Lynchburg. He won the Outstanding Academic Book for 1994 award for his book ''Plato ...

and Nicholas D. Smith question the authenticity of that tradition, mainly on the grounds that the earliest extant sources of the story are comparatively late and that it is unmentioned by more reliable sources such as

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been ...

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

, or

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

. According to John Burnet, the earliest extant mention of Socrates as a statuary or stonemason is in Timon of Philius, as quoted by

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ...

2.19. Burnet claims that Timon "is a very unsafe authority for anything", and that the attribution "appears to have arisen from an almost certainly false interpretation of ocrates'references to

Daedalus In Greek mythology, Daedalus (, ; Greek language, Greek: Δαίδαλος; Latin language, Latin: ''Daedalus''; Etruscan language, Etruscan: ''Taitale'') was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. H ...

as the ancestor of his family" (in Plato's ''Nephropathy'' 11c, 15b). Burnet points out that Daedalus had nothing to do with stone-cutting or marble sculpture; his media were instead metal and wood. Burnet furthermore argues that Xenophon and Plato would at some point have explicitly mentioned Socrates' background in stone-craftsmanship, if it were real, since both writers so often make Socrates mention craftsmen. Another early source of the claim that Socrates was a stone-worker is

Duris of Samos Duris of Samos (or Douris) (; BCafter 281BC) was a Greek historian and was at some period tyrant of Samos. Duris was the author of a narrative history of events in Greece and especially Macedonia from 371BC to 281BC, which has been lost. Othe ...

, who described Socrates as a slave. According to

Eduard Zeller Eduard Gottlob Zeller (; ; 22 January 181419 March 1908) was a German philosopher and Protestant theologian of the Tübingen School of theology. He was well known for his writings on Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Pre-Socratic Philosophy, ...

, Duris seems to have confused Socrates with

Phaedo of Elis Phaedo of Elis (; also, ''Phaedon''; , ''gen''.: Φαίδωνος; fl. 4th century BCE) was a Greek philosopher. A native of Elis, he was captured in war as a boy and sold into slavery. He subsequently came into contact with Socrates at A ...

. In direct contradiction to Plato's ''Crito'' 50d-e, one scholar of ancient Greek music has claimed that "Socrates received no training in ''mousikē'' in boyhood...", based on the assumption that " s father, a stonemason, was typical of a class that did not receive a training in ''mousikē''."

Family connections

According to Plato (in the dialogue '' Laches''), Sophroniscus was a close friend of Lysimachus, son of the illustrious

Aristides Aristides ( ; , ; 530–468 BC) was an ancient Athenian statesman. Nicknamed "the Just" (δίκαιος, ''díkaios''), he flourished at the beginning of Athens' Classical period and is remembered for his generalship in the Persian War. ...

the Just, which (presumably) allowed Socrates to become familiar with members of the circle of

Pericles Pericles (; ; –429 BC) was a Greek statesman and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Ancient Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed ...

. (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, we may safely infer that Sophroniscus was dead by 424.)p. 235, Debra Nails, ''The People of Plato'', Hackett, 2002. The fact that one of Socrates' sons — but ''not'' his ''eldest'' son

Lamprocles Lamprocles () was Socrates' and Xanthippe's eldest son. His two brothers were Menexenus and Sophroniscus. Lamprocles was a youth (μειράκιον ''meirakion'') at the time of Socrates' trial and death. According to Aristotle, Socrates' desc ...

— was named after Sophroniscus suggests that Sophroniscus was the less illustrious of the two grandfathers ( John Burnet 1911, ''Plato: Phaedo'', p. 12); the father of Socrates' wife,

Xanthippe Xanthippe (; ; fl. 5th–4th century BCE) was an Classical Athens, ancient Athenian, the wife of Socrates and mother of their three sons: Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus. She was likely much younger than Socrates, perhaps by as much as ...

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

References

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