1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damocles

DAMOCLES, one of the courtiers of the elder Dionysius of Syracuse. When he spoke in extravagant terms of the happiness of his sovereign, Dionysius is said to have invited him to a sumptuous banquet, at which he found himself seated under a naked sword suspended by a single hair (Cicero, Tusc. v. 21; Horace, Odes, iii. 1, 17; Persius iii. 40).