Family Connections
According to Plato (in the dialogue Laches), Sophroniscus was a close friend of Lysimachus, son of the illustrious Aristides the Just, which (presumably) allowed Socrates to become familiar with members of the circle of Pericles. (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.) The fact that one of Socrates' sons - but not his eldest son Lamprocles - was named after Sophroniscus suggests that Sophroniscus was the less illustrious of the two grandfathers (John Burnet 1911, Plato: Phaedo, p. 12) - that the father of Socrates' wife, Xanthippe, 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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