means rare in Greek literature, and the word [Greek: kakodaimôn] came as readily as [Greek: eudaimôn] to men's lips[1].
From these passages it is evident that in general each man was believed to have one, and only one, attendant genius, and his happiness or misery to depend on the character of the guardian allotted to him by fate. But sometimes this injustice of destiny was obviated by a belief similar to the modern belief in both good and bad angels in attendance on each man. The comment of Servius on Vergil's line, 'Quisque suos patimur manes[2],' sets forth this view: 'when we are born two Genii are allotted to us, one who exhorts us to good, the other who perverts us to evil.'
As in modern so in ancient times these genii were rarely visible to the men whom they guarded. The genius of Socrates, which, like those of other men past and present, had been, so he held, divinely appointed to wait upon him from his childhood onward[3], spoke to him indeed in a voice which he could hear[4] (just perhaps as the priestess of Delphi heard the voice of Apollo[5]), but ever remained unseen.or 'inspiration.']
- ↑ I do not of course wish to imply that in the every-day usage of these words the thought of a guardian-genius was present to men's minds; but the first formation of them can only have sprung from this belief.
- ↑ Aen. VI. 743.
- ↑ Plato, Theag. 128 D.
- ↑ Ibid. E.
- ↑ Both Plato (Apol. 40 A) and Xenophon (Mem. I. 1. 2-4), compare Socrates' converse with his genius with [Greek: mantikê
