Damocles

Damocles
Δαμοκλῆς
Damocles sits on a throne, looking apprehensively at a sword suspended above him. Dionysius is standing next to him and gestures at the sword. Servants, courtiers, and guards surround the two men.
In Richard Westall's Sword of Damocles, 1812, the boys of Cicero's anecdote have been changed to maidens for a neoclassical patron, Thomas Hope.
In-universe information
OccupationCourtier

Damocles[a] is a character who appears in a (likely apocryphal) anecdote commonly referred to as "the sword of Damocles",[1][2] an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. Damocles was a courtier in the court of Dionysius I of Syracuse,[3] a ruler of Syracuse, Sicily, Magna Graecia, during the classical Greek era.

The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of Sicily by Timaeus of Tauromenium (c. 356 – c. 260 BC). The Roman orator Cicero (c. 106 – c. 43 BC),[4] who may have read it in the texts of Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, used it in his Tusculanae Disputationes, 5. 61,[1] by which means it passed into the European cultural mainstream.


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  1. ^ a b Cicero.
  2. ^ Westall.
  3. ^ "Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, On the Nature of the Gods, On the Commonwealth". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  4. ^ "Marcus Tullius Cicero". 2012-08-07. Archived from the original on 2012-08-07. Retrieved 2021-06-07.