From his bare feet to his bald pate, the potentially shapeshifting figure of Socrates found in the literary tradition that arose after his controversial trial and death presents an intriguing array of oddities and unorthodoxies.  Most conspicuously, his unshod and shabby sartorial state flaunted poverty at a time when the city of Athens had become obsessed with wealth and its trappings.  Yet the philosopher's peculiar appearance was but a hint of the strange new calling he embraced.  Inspired perhaps by the famous Delphic dictum "Know thyself," he embarked on a mission devoted to finding truth through dialogue.  In what struck some as a dangerous new method of inquiry, he subjected nearly everyone he encountered to intense cross-examination, mercilessly exposing the ignorance of his interlocutors.  Moreover, in a culture that still put stock in magic, the highly charismatic, entertaining, and at times infuriating Socrates appeared to be a sorcerer bewitching the aristocratic young men of Athens who followed him fanatically about the agora.By all credible accounts, this exceedingly eccentric, self-styled radical truth-seeker had more than a whiff of the uncanny about him.  As Socrates himself explains in Plato's Republic, he was both blessed and burdened with a supernatural phenomenon in the form of a daimonion or inner spirit that always guided him: "This began when I was a child.  It is a voice, and whenever it speaks, it turns me away from something I am about to do, but it never encourages me to do anything."  An overtly rational thinker, Socrates nonetheless considered these warnings—or, in James Miller's words, "the audible interdictions he experienced as irresistible"—to be infallible.  Such oracular injunctions were highly anomalous as tutelary spirits were thought to assume a more nuanced presence.  Some scholars have dismissed Socrates' recurring sign as a hallucination or psychological aberration.  Others have conjectured that the internal voice might be attributable to the cataleptic or trancelike episodes from which the philosopher purportedly suffered.  Indeed, as Miller notes, "Socrates was storied for the abstracted states that overtook him"; not infrequently, his companions would see him stop in his tracks and stand still for hours, completely lost in thought.As Socrates further insisted, it was only the protestations of this apotreptic voice that held him back from entering the political arena.  Even so, its personal admonitions could not spare him persecution.  Despite the political amnesty extended by the resurgent democracy that succeeded the interim pro-Spartan oligarchy, the thinker's notoriety and ambiguous allegiances aroused suspicions.  In 399 BCE, Socrates was brought before the court on trumped-up charges of impiety; these included willfully neglecting the traditional divinities, flagrantly introducing new gods to the city, and wittingly corrupting the youth.  Athenian society recognized no division between religious and civic duties, and capricious gods demanded constant appeasement through sacrifices and rituals.  Consequently, belief in a purely private deity—particularly a wholly benevolent deity conveying unequivocal messages—was inadmissible.  Worse, as Socrates' own testimony revealed, he honored this personal god's authority above even the laws of the city.  Hence, the philosopher's daimonion loomed over his indictment, conviction, and sentencing.Nevertheless, in his defense speech as reconstructed by Plato in the Apology, Socrates maintained confidence in the protective nature and prophetic powers of his inner monitor.  He never questioned its affirmatory silence toward his predicament, remarking, "The divine faculty would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good."  Thus, Socrates acknowledged that his daimonion had its reasons, however inscrutable.  Variously described as malcontent and martyr, public nuisance and prophet, laughingstock and hero, the mercurial Athenian, like the sign that guided him, was difficult to fathom yet impossible to ignore.Passage Title: The Divine Sign of Socrates Question 45The passage author's view of Socrates' many eccentricities is that they constituted:A.a means of disguising deceptive practices.B.an essential part of his mission and message.C.a pattern of behavior characteristic of a political rebel.D.symptoms of an identifiable syndrome from which he suffered