Tyrants are courted under a pretense of affection, but only for a season. For when by chance they have fallen from power, as they generally do, then is it known how poor they were in friends

Tyrants are courted under a pretense of affection, but only for a season. For when by chance they have fallen from power, as they generally do, then is it known how poor they were in friends. M. Tullius Cicero. De Amictia. Laelius on friendship. Section 53.

The Sword of Damocles - Dionysus II, tyrant of Syracuse draws Damocles's attention to the sword hanging above him, in a painting by Richard Westall in 1812, at the Ackland Art Museum of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.