Damocles

Legendary courtier of the elder Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse (405–367 BC). He extolled the happiness of royalty, but the tyrant showed him the precarious nature of fortune in a singular manner. While seated at a richly-spread table, Damocles looked up to see a keen-edged sword suspended over his head by a single horse-hair.

Damocles was an excessively flattering courtier in the court of Dionysius I of Syracuse, a 4th Century BC tyrant of Syracuse, Italy. 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.

Woodcut images of the Sword of Damocles as a symbol appear in 16th and 17th century European books of devices. The winged blade on the badges of the British Special Forces units SAS SBS SRR and SFSG is officially said to be the sword of Damocles but is usually just referred to as a winged or flaming dagger. In a different domain, the first Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) Head Mounted Display system developed by Ivan Sutherland was named "The Sword of Damocles" due to its appearance, further demonstrating the popular appeal of its symbolism. In Robertson v Swincer (1989) 52 SASR 356, a South Australian Supreme Court case, Justice Legoe used the metaphor 'sword of Damocles' to describe the effect of the imposition of the tort of negligence in relation to the duty of care of a parent to their child. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness.

Music

The Sword of Damocles is the title of a song in the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). When he looks back at her he "could clearly see The Sword of Damocles hanging directly above her". The Tub Ring song "The Promise Keeper" makes a direct reference with the line, "so on your throne, a sword is hanging overhead." The Sword of Damocles was used in the song "nuclear winter" for the 1987 release of Persecution Mania. The German band "Sodom," compared the threat of impending nuclear war between the now defunct Soviet Union and the United States, as somehow being analogous to the sword of Damocles hanging by a horse hair. The actual line from the song is as follows:

Slow death is what we can expect - Strike will have just this one effect - Condemned to capital punishment - By the nuclear sword of Damocles

Television and film

In the Canadian television sitcom Made in Canada, which was set in a television production company, one of the company's projects was The Sword of Damacles (Damocles' name was intentionally misspelled for comic effect), a parody of mythological adventure series such as Xena: Warrior Princess. King Mondo of the Machine Empire wields the "Sword of Damocles" in Power Rangers: Zeo. At the end of The Simpsons episode Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk, Mr. Burns plots his revenge of Homer at some unspecified point in the future using a Sword of Damocles analogy. David Brent, played by Ricky Gervais on the original BBC version of The Office, uses a Sword of Damocles analogy when he is speaking of the proposed redundancies that are rumored to be taking place around the office. In the fifth season of the television show Gilmore Girls, Lorelai Gilmore references the Sword of Damocles in a conversation about a possible pregnancy. In the first season, episode twelve of Magnum PI, Thomas Magnum refers to the "Sword of Damocles" in an analogy to an inventory Higgins is threatening to take of his apartment. Madeleine refers to living under the Sword of Damocles as long as the Directory is missing. The Sword of Damocles is a 1920 silent British film starring José Collins. In Three Stooges short, the legend of the Sword of Damocles gets mentioned in Half-Wits Holiday (1947), when a pie gets thrown up and stuck to the ceiling during a party. You act as if the Sword of Damocles was hanging over your head", to which Moe replies, "Lady, you must be psychic!"

Literature

The incident of the Sword of Damocles is portrayed in L. In the Dresden Files series of books by Jim Butcher, main character Harry Dresden is placed under a watch called the Doom of Damocles for suspicion of black magic. The only punishment for violation of his probation is execution by the sword. In the third novel of A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Wide Window the children live by a harbor town with the name Damocles Dock that has a sword dangling from the top. In the third volume of the comic book series The Avengers, time-travelling villain Kang the Conqueror assaults the Earth from orbit in a gigantic, sword-shaped ship/space station called Damocles Base. Several establishing shots of Damocles Base showed it "hanging" in orbit with the "tip" of the sword shape pointed towards Earth. "Sword of Damocles" is the title of the fourth book in the Star Trek: Titan series of novels.

Computer and video games

The computer game Damocles centres on the player saving a planet from a comet, Damocles, that threatens to impact it. This reference is made explicit by the inclusion of a sword in the game's title artwork. During the computer game, Max Payne 2, near the end of the game, Max remarks that the spire hung over Vlad's head like the Sword of Damocles. The Sword of Damocles can be collected and used as a weapon in the computer game Titan Quest, and is found, approprately enough, in Greece. One of these is the Damocles chamber, which contains an array of moving suspended swords that drop to the ground should the player walk directly under them.