Note 648 — Chapter LXVIII · SOKRATES.

See the conversation of Sokratês (reported by Xenophon, Mem. i, 4, 15) with Aristodemus, respecting the gods: “What will be sufficient to persuade you (asks Sokratês) that the gods care about you?” “When they send me special monitors, as you say that they do to you (replies Aristodemus); to tell me what to do, and what not to do.” To which Sokratês replied, that they answer the questions of the Athenians, by replies of the oracle, and that they send prodigies (τέρατα) by way of information to the Greeks generally. He further advises Aristodemus to pay assiduous court (θεραπεύειν) to the gods, in order to see whether they will not send him monitory information about doubtful events (i, 4, 18).

So again in his conversation with Euthydemus, the latter says to him: Σοὶ δὲ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐοίκασιν ἔτι φιλικώτερον ἢ τοῖς ἄλλοις χρῆσθαι, οἵγε μηδὲ ἐπερωτώμενοι ὑπὸ σοῦ προσημαίνουσιν, ἅτε χρὴ ποιεῖν καὶ ἃ μὴ (iv, 3, 12).

Compare i, 1, 19; and iv, 8, 11, where this perpetual communication and advice from the gods is employed as an evidence to prove the superior piety of Sokratês.