 Plato, in "The Republic", numbered Simonides with Bias and Pittacus among the wise and blessed, even putting into the mouth of Socrates the words "it is not easy to disbelieve Simonides, for he is a wise man and divinely inspired," but in his dialogue "Protagoras", Plato numbered Simonides with Homer and Hesiod as precursors of the sophist.A number of apocryphal sayings were attributed to him.Michael Psellos accredited him with "the word is the image of the thing."