damocles

     

Damocles is a figure feature in a single moral anecdote concerning the Sword of Damocles, which was a late addition to classical Greek culture. The figure belongs properly to legend rather than Greek myth. 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, by which means it has passed into the European cultural mainstream.

Trivia about damocles

  • At a feast he couldn't enjoy his dinner because his life was literally hanging by a thread
  • He was seated with a sword dangling above his head at a feast hosted by Dionysius
  • Life hung by a thread for this guy of Greek literature who sat beneath a sword