Socrates is a historical person and the mentor to Plato, but Plato uses him in his works to develop and deliver his arguments. Since we don't have much about Socrates outside of Plato its unclear how true Plato's rendition is true to what Socrates would've argued.

Also it should be noted that ancient writings did not include punctuation or whitespace, and presumably they were meant to be read aloud and listened to. Augustine (354 - 430 AD) mentions someone reading in his head as odd.