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The Sword of Damocles
In Greek myth, Damocles (a guy whose only job was to hang around the royal court and never got to be in any other story) approached his king, Dionysius, and expressed a bit of envy for what it must be like to be he, surrounded by riches and dripping with power. Dionysius then offered to trade him positions for a day, which Damocles jumped at the chance to do. As he took his new seat on the throne, he looked above him to see a heavy sword hanging above his head, held there by only a horse’s hair. This bit of theatre amounts to the moral that to be king comes with it an ever-present sense of doom and constant fear.