Damocles

n. legendary Greek character from whose name the expression "sword of Damocles" was derived

Damocles is a figure featured in a single moral anecdote which was a late addition to classical Greek culture.The figure belongs properly to legend rather than Greek mythology. The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of Sicily by Timaeus of Tauromenium (c. 356 – 260 BC). Cicero may have read it in Diodorus Siculus. He made use of it in his Tusculan Disputations V.61–62.Damocles was an excessively flattering courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a 4th Century BC tyrant of Syracuse, Italy. He exclaimed that, as a great man of power and authority, Dionysius was truly fortunate. Dionysius offered to switch places with him for a day, so he could taste first hand that fortune. In the evening a banquet was held, where Damocles very much enjoyed being waited upon like a king. Only at the end of the meal did he look up and notice a sharpened sword hanging by a single piece of horsehair directly above his head. Immediately, he lost all taste for the fine foods and beautiful boys and asked leave of the tyrant, saying he no longer wanted to be so fortunate.
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Noun
1. the Greek courtier to Dionysius the Elder who (according to legend) was condemned to sit under a naked sword that was suspended by a hair in order to demonstrate to him that being a king was not the happy state Damocles had said it was (4th century BC)
(hypernym) courtier

n. Damocles, legendary Greek character from whose name the expression "sword of Damocles" was derived

n. Damocles, legendary Greek character from whose name the expression "sword of Damocles" was derived

n. Damocles, legendary Greek character from whose name the expression "sword of Damocles" was derived