Note 31 — Chapter IX · APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.
Reading edition
Plato, Apol. c. 5, p. 20 D; c. 9, p. 23 A.
Aristeides the Rhetor furnishes a valuable confirmation of the truth of that picture of Sokrates, which we find in the Platonic Apology. All the other companions of Sokrates who wrote dialogues about him (not preserved to us), presented the same general features. 1. Avowed ignorance. 2. The same declaration of the oracle concerning him. 3. The feeling of frequent signs from τὸ δαιμόνιον.
Ὁμολογεῖται μέν γε λέγειν αὐτὸν (Sokrates) ὡς ἄρα οὐδὲν ἐπίσταιτο, καὶ πάντες τοῦτό φασιν οἱ συγγενόμενοι· ὁμολογεῖται δ’ αὖ καὶ τοῦτο, σοφώτατον εἶναι Σωκράτη τὴν Πυθίαν εἰρηκέναι, &c.
(Aristeides, Orat. xlv. Περὶ Ῥητορικῆς, pp. 23, 24, 25, Dindorf.)