Menexenus

This article is about the person. For Plato's dialogue, see Menexenus (dialogue).

Menexenus (Greek: Μενέξενоς) was one of three sons of Socrates and Xanthippe. His two brothers were Lamprocles and Sophroniscus. Menexenus is not to be confused with the character of the same name who appears in Plato's dialogues Menexenus and Lysis. Socrates' sons Menexenus and Sophroniscus were mere children at the time of their father's trial and death,^[1] one of them small enough to be held in his mother's arms.^[2] As there was an ancient Greek tradition of naming the older sons after their grandfathers, Menexenus was likely the youngest of the three. According to Aristotle, Socrates' descendants as a whole turned out to be unremarkable: "silly and dull".^[3]

References

1. ^ Plato. Apology 34d, Phaedo 116b.
2. ^ Plato. Phaedo, 60a.
3. ^ Aristotle. Rhetoric, 1390b30-32.