gorgias   

himself therefore in strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if

he had meant to do rightly he would have remained his slave, and then,

according to your doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is

unspeakably miserable, for he has been guilty of the greatest

crimes: in the first place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas,

to come to him, under the pretence that he would restore to him the

throne which Perdiccas has usurped, and after entertaining him and his

son Alexander, who was his own cousin, and nearly of an age with

him, and making them drunk, he threw them into a waggon and carried

them off by night, and slew them, and got both of them out of the way;

and when he had done all this wickedness he never discovered that he

was the most miserable of all men, was very far from repenting:

shall I tell you how he showed his remorse? he had a younger

brother, a child of seven years old, who was the legitimate son of

Perdiccas, and to him of right the kingdom belonged; Archelaus,

however, had no mind to bring him up as he ought and restore the

kingdom to him; that was not his notion of happiness; but not long

afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned him, and declared to

his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while running after a

goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the greatest criminal

of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most miserable

and not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there are many

Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, who would rather be

any other Macedonian than Archelaus!

Soc. I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather

than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument

with which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I

stand refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my

good friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word which

you have been saying.

Pol. That is because you will not; for you surely must think as I

do.