2-714-440 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The Banquet of Damocles', 1890. Damocles, 4th century BC courtier, swapped places for a day with King Dionysius II who arranged for a sword held by a single hair of a horse's tail to hang above his chair, to better understand great fortune and power bring fear, anxiety and great danger. A moral known as the 'Sword of Damocles'. From "Cassell's Illustrated Universal History, Vol. I - Early and Greek History", by Edmund Ollier. [Cassell and Company, Limited, London, Paris and Melbourne, 1890]