Pl. XXVII. Here is a further variation. The standing sister or friend, Demostrate, is evidently trying to tempt the taste of the seated Ameiniche by offering her jewels, but cannot even attract her attention. With one hand resting on the seat of the squarely made chair, Ameiniche looks pensively outwards. The artist seems to imply that when personal adornment ceases to interest a woman, the shadow of fate is not far away. A relief published in the _Corpus_[204], on which is depicted a lady and her attendant, the former fastening a bracelet, bears an inscription which at once interests us (Fig. 67). The seated lady is named Phaenarete, a name borne by the mother of Socrates. It would be a strange freak of fortune if it had preserved to us the tomb of the mother of Socrates, engaged in an occupation scarcely in harmony with the character of her son. It is curious that there is something to be said in favour of this view, and no decisive argument against it. The date of [Illustration: FIG. 67. STELE OF PHAENARETE.] [Illustration: PLATE XXVI _Page 174_ ] [Illustration: PLATE XXVII _Page 174_ ] the relief is given by Furtwängler[205] as the Pheidian age; most archaeologists would probably place it rather later, but still well within the fifth century. Phaenarete gave birth to Socrates about B.C. 470; but when she died we know not: there is certainly no reason why she should not have died at about the date of execution of this relief. Whether she was old or young at the time of her death would make no serious difference; on her tomb an ideal figure would appear and no true portrait. But it may be said that the parents of Socrates were poor; his father Sophroniscus was a second-rate sculptor, his mother was a midwife[206]: is it likely that such people could afford so expensive a tomb? To which it may be replied that Socrates certainly inherited a small fortune. And it appears that the fine tombs at Athens did not belong by any means exclusively to the wealthy class. Again, Sophroniscus was a sculptor; a tomb of somewhat sumptuous style would therefore cost him far less than the usual price. And the profession of a midwife, in a city where such duties were undertaken ordinarily by women, might be fairly lucrative. On the other hand, the name Phaenarete does not appear to have been at all rare at Athens. It occurs on three or four existing stelae, some of which belong to the fifth century[207]. Much therefore as we should desire to find in our stele a record of the mother of Socrates executed either by Sophroniscus, or even by Socrates himself, who in his youth followed his father’s craft, we cannot do so with any confidence. Such an attribution remains a bare possibility, and we have no means of testing it.