The first sentence of the Apology of Socrates is:

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> Ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Άθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα· ἐγὼ δ' οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπ' αὐτῶν ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην, οὕτω πιθανῶς ἔλεγον.
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I've seen several different translations for the phrase *ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην*:

* I almost forgot myself.
* I was almost carried away with myself.
* I almost didn't recognize myself.
* I almost forgot who I was.

What is he actually saying?

In context—"How *you* felt about the prosecution I don't know; as for *me*, they were so convincing that I almost \_\_\_\_\_\_, and yet almost nothing they said was true"—the most rhetorically *logical* thing for it to mean is something like "I almost forgot that I am who I am instead of who they said I am." But my view of what's logical and what Plato actually wrote don't necessarily have anything to do with each other.

In case it's helpful to know when answering, I know very little Greek—certainly not enough to read this sentence if I hadn't read it already years ago when I knew more than I do today. I know that *ἐμαυτοῦ* means "of myself" and *λανθάνομαι* is middle and means "I escape the notice of," though I'm not sure what flavor the prefix *ἐπι* adds. [**EDIT:** I see from Alex B's comment that λανθάνω, the active, rather than the middle that Socrates uses, is actually "I escape the notice of."] In the dictionaries I looked in, there was no entry for the verb as a reflexive.

Thoughts?