Damocles
A Syracusan, one of the courtiers of Dionysius the elder. Damocles, having extolled the great felicity of Dionysius, was invited by him to a magnificent banquet, and was seated immediately below a naked sword which was suspended from the ceiling by a single horse-hair, a sight which explained to him at once what the felicity of a tyrant really was. The story is alluded to by Horace (C. iii. 1, 17).