Chapter V. Numenius on the Same Subject, From The Secrets in Plato

[NUMENIUS] ‘IF Plato, after proposing to write about the theology of the Athenians, had then been displeased with it, and accused it of containing tales of the quarrels of the gods among themselves, and of singing how some had intercourse with their children, and others devoured them, and how for these things children took vengeance upon their fathers, and brothers upon brothers, and other things of this kind,----if, I say, Plato had taken these stories and openly censured them, I think he would have afforded to the Athenians an occasion for showing their wickedness again by killing him, just as they killed Socrates.

‘But since he would not have preferred life to truthfulness, and saw that he should be able to preserve both life and truth, he gave the part of the Athenians to Euthyphron, a boastful and stupid person, and especially bad in theology, but represented Socrates in his own person, and in his peculiar style, in which he was accustomed to converse with and confute every one.’