Cicero's warning

In Richard Westall's Sword of Damocles, 1812, the boys of Cicero's anecdote have been changed to maidens for a neoclassical patron, Thomas Hope. he

The Great Books and Greek mythology used to be the foundations of a classical education in sciences or humanities.  Greek philosophers used  myths and parables to bring a point across. Most of Greek myths were actually parables meant for warning those involved in governing the polis (from where Aristotle created the concept of Politics) "Sword of Damocles" is used as expression for imminent danger, but seldom explained in full. It might be worth the effort. According to the story, Damocles was pandering to Dionysius, his king, and exclaimed to him that Dionysius was truly fortunate as a great man of power and authority, surrounded by magnificence. In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for one day so that Damocles could taste that very fortune firsthand.  Damocles quickly and eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Damocles sat down in the king's throne surrounded by every luxury, but Dionysius arranged that a huge sword should hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail.  Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great fortune and power comes also great danger. King Dionysius effectively conveyed the sense of constant fear in which a person with great power may live. Cicero used this story as the last in a series of contrasting examples for reaching the conclusion he had been moving towards in this fifth Disputation, in which the theme is that virtue is sufficient for living a happy life. Cicero asks, "Does not Dionysius seem to have made it sufficiently clear that there can be nothing happy for the person over whom some fear always loom?" Presidents learn -sooner or later- that power hangs from a horse's hair. In the US constitutional system, they tend to forget that that thread is not their bad behavior, but trying to hide it. The only two cases of impeachment in modern times were not about crimes, but hiding facts and obstructing investigations. The thread is now as strong as the next Congress majorities.  Perhaps it would be a good idea to hang a copy of Westfall's painting in the Oval Office.