Happiness: Ancient and Modern

Aristotle conceives Happiness as activity in accordance with Virtue.  In other words, it consists in the exercise of one's talents.  In sharp contrast, the standard Modern concept is that Happiness is constituted by the satisfaction of all one's desires, i. e. something that is pursued, which is not the case with Aristotle's version.  Modern thinkers thus have difficulty appreciating that citizens of Plato's Republic are happy, not because they are ignorantly inured to its inegalitarianism, but because they are each functioning in accordance with the best of their abilities.  Thus, both Ancient and Modern polities are conceived as achieving general Happiness, the difference being how Happiness is conceived in each case.  So, one anomaly is Marx, who is closer to Plato and Aristotle than to Hobbes, Locke, etc. in that regard.