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|title=The sword of Damocles
|title=The sword of Damocles
|work=Articles on Ancient History
|work=Articles on Ancient History
}}</ref> which was a late addition to classical Greek culture. The figure belongs properly to [[legend]] rather than [[Greek mythology|Greek myth]].<ref><!--the following note was specifically requested-->It belongs to [[legend]] in that is an anecdote allegedly of actual persons, taking place in a specific time and place. It is not myth because it bears no relation to [[Cult (religion)|''cultus'']], jkdajjriencncnjjdjdjeiuhjkndfjklbnf[aprquirgnfbnzm,vjnkdfjkagiergn ogauirustifies no [[ritual]] and explains nothing beyond its immediate didactic purpose.</ref> The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of [[Sicily]] by [[Timaeus (historian)|Timaeus of Tauromenium]] (c. [[356 BC|356]] – [[260 BC]]). [[Cicero]] may have read it in [[Diodorus Siculus]]. He made use of it in his ''Tusculan Disputations'' V.61–62,<ref>[http://www.livius.org/sh-si/sicily/sicily_t11.html ''Tusculan Disputations'': Cicero on the sword of Damocles] (in English).</ref> by which means it has passed into the European cultural mainstream.
}}</ref> which was a late addition to classical Greek culture. The figure belongs properly to [[legend]] rather than [[Greek mythology|Greek myth]].<ref><!--the following note was specifically requested-->It belongs to [[legend]] in that is an anecdote allegedly of actual persons, taking place in a specific time and place. It is not myth because it bears no relation to [[Cult (religion)|''cultus'']], justifies no [[ritual]] and explains nothing beyond its immediate didactic purpose.</ref> The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of [[Sicily]] by [[Timaeus (historian)|Timaeus of Tauromenium]] (c. [[356 BC|356]] – [[260 BC]]). [[Cicero]] may have read it in [[Diodorus Siculus]]. He made use of it in his ''Tusculan Disputations'' V.61–62,<ref>[http://www.livius.org/sh-si/sicily/sicily_t11.html ''Tusculan Disputations'': Cicero on the sword of Damocles] (in English).</ref> by which means it has passed into the European cultural mainstream.


The Damocles of the anecdote was an excessively flattering courtier in the court of [[Dionysius II of Syracuse]], a fourth century BC [[tyrant]] of [[Syracuse, Italy|Syracuse]]. 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.<ref name="aoah">{{cite web
The Damocles of the anecdote was an excessively flattering courtier in the court of [[Dionysius II of Syracuse]], a fourth century BC [[tyrant]] of [[Syracuse, Italy|Syracuse]]. 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.<ref name="aoah">{{cite web
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[[fr:Épée de Damoclès]]
[[fr:Épée de Damoclès]]
[[ko:다모클레스의 칼]]
[[ko:다모클레스의 칼]]
[[hr:Damoklov mač]]kladfgnaljkfbgalkjbglkbnlxcpweruhtgsmcdb
[[hr:Damoklov mač]]
[[it:Damocle]]
dfgsldfj
[[it:Damoclesdfgmnf va]]
[[he:חרב דמוקלס]]
[[he:חרב דמוקלס]]
[[nl:Damocles]]
[[nl:Damocles]]
[[ja:ダモクレス]dfsgkls mdabnsdfibhaioergoiuerhgio]
[[ja:ダモクレス]]
[[no:Damokles]]
[[no:Damokles]]
[[pl:Miecz Damoklesa]]
[[pl:Miecz Damoklesa]]

Revision as of 16:53, 6 March 2008

"Sword of Damocles" redirects here. For other uses, see Sword of Damocles (disambiguation).
In Richard Westall's Sword of Damocles, 1812, the pretty boys of Cicero's anecdote have been changed to maidens for a neoclassical patron, Thomas Hope.

Damocles is a figure featured in a single moral anecdote concerning the Sword of Damocles,[1] which was a late addition to classical Greek culture. The figure belongs properly to legend rather than Greek myth.[2] 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,[3] by which means it has passed into the European cultural mainstream.

The Damocles of the anecdote was an excessively flattering courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a fourth century BC tyrant of Syracuse. 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.[1][4]

Dionysius had successfully conveyed a sense of the constant fear in which the great man lives. Cicero adduces this exemplum as the last in a series of contrasting exemplars of the conclusion he had been building towards in this fifth Disputation, in which the theme is that virtue is sufficient for living a happy life.[5] Cicero asks

"Does not Dionysius seem to have made it sufficiently clear that there can be nothing happy for the person over whom some fear always looms?"[6]

The Sword of Damocles is frequently used in allusion to this tale, epitomizing the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. More generally, it is used to denote the sense of foreboding engendered by the precarious situation,[7] especially one in which the onset of tragedy is restrained only by a delicate trigger or chance. Moreover, it can be seen as a lesson in the importance of understanding someone's experience.[citation needed]

Compare the Hellenistic and Roman imagery connected with Tyche and Fortuna.

Woodcut images of the Sword of Damocles as an emblem appear in sixteenth and seventeenth-century European books of devices, with moralizing couplets or quatrains, with the import METUS EST PLENA TYRANNIS, "The tyrant is filled with fear"— as it is the tyrant's place to sit daily under the sword.[8] In Wenceslas Hollar's Emblemata Nova (London, no date), a small vignette shows Damocles under a canopy of state, at the festive table, with Dionysius seated nearby; the etching, with its clear poltical moral, was later used by Thomas Hobbes to illustrate his Philosophicall Rudiments concerning Government and Society (London 1651)>[9]

In mass-market culture

  • In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when Rocky is awakened and enters into song. Not only does he talk about the Sword Of Damocles in the song, it is also the song's name on the soundtrack. The line is "The sword of Damocles is hanging over my head and I've got the feeling someone's gonna be cutting the thread"
  • In The Dresden Files Books, The "Doom of Damocles" is placed upon Harry Dresden, the main character, as the the background from the book. The doom involves a curse/legal sentence handed down by the White Council in which a powerful sorcerer watches over a wizard suspected of violating the rules of wizarding. The wizard doing the watching wields a powerful sword enchanted to slice through any protective magics the offending wizard may employ. Wizards that flagrantly violate the laws of wizarding while under the Doom of Damocles are immediately executed, while more questionable violations are brought to the councils attention for deliberation.
  • In the Series Of Unfortunate Events, Book 3, there is a dock called Damocles Dock, and in the picture, the dock has a sword hanging from a string as an allusion to the dock's name.
  • The Band Electric Doormat [10] made a song called The Sword of Damocles. The song is about a break up, of sorts, in which the cutting of "the thread that hung the sword of Damocles" as an act of emotional murder.
  • Track five on the Lou Reed album Magic and Loss features the song "Sword of Damocles Externally," in which Reed equates the uncertainty of a cancer patient undergoing radiation treatment to the eponymous Sword of Damocles.
  • In The Simpsons, "Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk" (Season 3, Episode 11), when Montgomery Burns talks about one day getting his revenge against Homer Simpson, refers to a Sword of Damocles hanging above Homer's head.

Notes

  1. ^ a b "The sword of Damocles". Articles on Ancient History. Retrieved 2008-01-26.
  2. ^ It belongs to legend in that is an anecdote allegedly of actual persons, taking place in a specific time and place. It is not myth because it bears no relation to cultus, justifies no ritual and explains nothing beyond its immediate didactic purpose.
  3. ^ Tusculan Disputations: Cicero on the sword of Damocles (in English).
  4. ^ "(painting) The Sword of Damocles". Ackland Art Museum.
  5. ^ "virtutem ad beate vivendum se ipse esse contentam" (5.1); Mary Jaeger, "Cicero and Archimedes' Tomb" The Journal of Roman Studies 92 (2002:49-61) discusses the Damocles anecdote p 51f.
  6. ^ Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.1.
  7. ^ "Evil foreboded or dreaded," was the succinct remark if William Rose Benet, in The Reader's Encyclopedia, 1948, s.v. "Damocles".
  8. ^ Some examples on the Internet: Guillaume La Perrière, Morosophie (1553), emblem 30; Claude Paradin, Devises heroïques (1557), "Coelitus impendet" ("It hangs from Heaven"); Jean Jacques Boissard, Emblematum Liber (1593), emblem 45.
  9. ^ Richard Pennington, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Wenceslaus Hollar, 1607-1677, (Cambridge University Press) 1982: cat, no. 450.
  10. ^ (http://www.electricdoormat.com/music.php)
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