​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).