The Socratic vocare?

I was attached to this city by the god -- though it seems a ridiculous thing to say -- as upon a great and noble horse which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly. It is to fulfill some such function that I believe the god has placed me in the city. I never cease to rouse each and every one of you, to persuade and reproach you all day long and everywhere I find myself in your company (Socrates, in Plato's Apology 30a-31a).