The captured plotter

473c473dPolusWhat do you mean? If someone is caught doing injustice, plotting to make himself tyrant, and once caught is racked and castrated and has his eyes burned out, and, having been maimed himself with many other great maimings of every kind and having watched his own children and wife maimed, is at last crucified or coated in pitch—will that man be happier than if he gets away, sets himself up as tyrant and spends his life ruling in the city and doing whatever he wants, envied and called happy by the citizens and by foreigners alike? Is that what you call impossible to refute?