
Now and again, classical derivatives and mythological allusions arise in the news cycle. Regarding the case of New York mayor Eric Adams, the sword of Damocles keeps recurring in pundit parlance.
First, to review the news story so far, Mayor Adams, a Democrat, was indicted in September of last year, during Joe Biden’s administration, on charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. To be clear, being indicted means that a federal grand jury, consisting of 16-23 citizens, heard evidence presented by prosecutors, and at least 12 of them found the evidence sufficient for the prosecution to go forward.
As you no doubt know, there are new wrinkles. The Trump Justice Department has moved to dismiss the case “without prejudice,” meaning that the charges could be refiled at any time. Prejudice, a Latin derivative (of course), means “judgment in advance.” So a dismissal without prejudice means that the judge is not deciding guilt or innocence, but rather is dismissing the case without that judgment, leaving open the possibility that the charges can be resurrected. As you may also know, Mayor Adams is now requesting that the case be dismissed instead “with prejudice,” which sounds like a bad thing, because isn’t prejudice a bad thing? Not for Mayor Adams. With prejudice means his charges would go away, i.e., with advance judgment, meaning it’s over and done with, naturally preferable for the accused mayor.
A dismissal without prejudice, as proposed by the Trump Department of Justice, would place a sword of Damocles over Mayor Adams’s head. Anyone can decipher the meaning of the phrase, which calls to mind that expression about having an ax over one’s head. Adams would be free from prosecution only as long as his behavior (meaning enforcing immigration policy) pleases the Trump DOJ. If he steps outside the lines, he could be facing prosecution once again.
So who was Damocles anyway, and why did he have a sword hanging over his head? The stories come from various sources, including Cicero. They’re probably largely apocryphal.
Dionysius was a 4th century BCE king of Syracuse in Greece. Damocles, a member of his court, attended a royal dinner, where he proceeded to flatter his king’s power and prestige. Dionysius offered his throne to Damocles for a momentary thrill, so that he could see how it felt to wield such power. But Dionysius hung a sword, suspended by a horsehair, over Damocles’s head, and said something in Greek along these lines: “How’s it feel now, buddy?” The ax could fall at any time. The sword of Damocles evokes a feeling of dread and imminent peril.
Cicero wrote that Dionysius, known for his brutality, feared to have a barber come near him with a razor and so taught his daughters to cut his beard and his hair, because he knew people wanted to kill him. As Shakespeare put it in Henry IV, “uneasy is the head that wears the crown.”
Mayor Adams wants the sword, the ax, to be permanently removed. Can he convince a judge? Is his promised cooperation with the Administration a valuable enough bargaining chip? In the meantime, a sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of Internal Revenue accountants, employees at the National Parks, secretaries and office workers and other federal employees. It hangs, more literally, over the heads of President Zelenskyy and his people.
In fact, although none of us wears the crown, we’re can sense it, at least some of the time–a sword over our heads, hanging there by a thread.