Damocles, a flatterer at the court of the elder Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, whom, after one day extravagantly extolling the happiness of kings, Dionysius set down to a magnificent banquet, but who, when seated at it, looked up and saw a sword hanging over his head suspended by a single hair; a lesson this which admonished him, and led him to change his views of the happiness of kings.