“Answer me,” cried Dionysidoros.
“Well then,” replied Socrates, “I answer that Iolaus was the nephew of Heracles, and, as far as I can see, no nephew of mine. For my brother Patrocles was not his father, but quite another guess sort of person, Iphicles the brother of Heracles.”
“And Patrocles was your brother?”
“By the mother, not by the father.”
“Then he was your brother, and not your brother?”
“By the father’s side he was not,” answered Socrates, “since he was the son of Charidemos, and I of Sophroniscos.”
“But Sophroniscos, no less than Charidemos, was a father.”
“Exactly; the former was my father, the latter Patrocles’.”
“Then was Charidemos other than a father?”
“He was other than mine.”