r I have never had any acquaintance
with him.

POLUS: And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance
with him, whether a man is happy?

SOCRATES: Most certainly not.

POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know
whether the great king was a happy man?

SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands
in the matter of education and justice.

POLUS: What! and does all happiness consist in this?

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women who
are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and
evil are miserable.

POLUS: Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is
miserable?

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is wicked.

POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to
the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who
was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he 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, and 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