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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: kills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to suffer than to do
injustice. He does not consider that going about with a dagger and putting
men out of the way, or setting a house on fire, is real power. To this
Polus assents, on the ground that such acts would be punished, but he is
still of opinion that evil-doers, if they are unpunished, may be happy
enough. He instances Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, the usurper of
Macedonia. Does not Socrates think him happy?--Socrates would like to know
more about him; he cannot pronounce even the great king to be happy, unless
he knows his mental and moral condition. Polus explains that Archelaus was
a slave, being the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of
Perdiccas king of Macedon--and he, by every species of crime, first
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