Apuleius, who lived in the second century of our aera and was consequently nearly a contemporary of Plutarch, has explained this doctrine of daemons in his treatise On the God of Sokrates.  “Moreover there are certain divine middle powers, situated in this interval between the highest ether and earth, which is in the lowest place, through whom our desires and deserts pass to the gods.  These are called by a Greek name daemons, who being placed between the terrestrial and celestial inhabitants, transmit prayers from the one and gifts from the other.  They likewise carry supplications from the one and auxiliaries from the other as certain interpreters and saluters of both.  Through these same daemons, as Plato says in the Banquet, all denunciations, the various miracles of enchanters, and all the species of presages, are directed.  Prefects, from among the number of these, providentially attend to everything, according to the province assigned to each; either by the formation of dreams, or causing the fissures in entrails, or governing the flight of some birds, and instructing the song of others, or by inspiring prophets, or hurling thunder, or producing the coruscations of lightning in the clouds, or causing other things to take place from which we obtain a knowledge of future events.  And it is requisite to think that all these particulars are effected by the will, the power, and authority of the celestial gods, but by the compliance, operations, and ministrant offices of daemons.”—­T.  Taylor’s Translation:  he adds, “For a copious account of daemons, their nature, and different orders, see the notes on the First Alkibiades in vol. i. of my Plato, and also my translation of Iamblichus on the Mysteries.”  A little further on Apuleius says:  “It is not fit that the supernal gods should descend to things of this kind.  This is the province of the intermediate gods, who dwell in the regions of the air, which border on the earth, and yet are no less conversant with the confines of the heavens; just as in every part of the world there are animals adapted to the several parts, the volant being in the air and the gradient on the earth.”

As to the expression “the god” ([Greek:  ho theos]), which often occurs in Greek writers, Taylor observes (note a.) “According to Plato one thing is a god simply, another on account of union, another through participation, another through contact, and another through similitude.  For of super-essential natures, each is primarily a god; of intellectual natures, each is a god according to union; and of divine souls, each is a god according to contact with the gods; and the souls of men are allotted this appellation through similitude.”  He therefore concludes that Apuleius was justified in calling the daemon of Sokrates a god; and that this was the opinion of Sokrates appears, as he says, from the First Alkibiades, where Sokrates says, “I have long been of opinion that the god did not as yet direct me to hold any conversation with you.”