Bread and circuses

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"Bread and circuses" (or bread and games) (from Latin: panem et circenses) is metonymic for a superficial means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the creation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion; distraction; or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace,[1] as an offered "palliative." Juvenal decried it as a simplistic motivation of common people.[2][3][4] The phrase also implies the erosion or ignorance of civic duty amongst the concerns of the commoner.

In modern usage, the phrase is taken to describe a populace that no longer values civic virtues and the public life. To many, it connotes a supposed triviality and frivolity that characterized the Roman Republic prior to its decline into the autocratic monarchy characteristic of the later Roman Empire's transformation about 44 B.C.[citation needed]

Rome

Further information: Grain supply to the city of Rome and Populares

This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirist and poet Juvenal (circa A.D. 100). In context, the Latin metaphor panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining cares of a new Roman populace which cares not for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of his contemporary Romans.[5] Roman politicians devised a plan in 140 B.C. to win the votes of these new citizens: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", would be the most effective way to rise to power.

… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses[6]

[...] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. [...]

(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81)

Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 B.C.; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary
  2. ↑ Juvenal's literary and cultural influence (Book IV: Satire 10.81)
  3. ↑ American Heritage Dictionary: to placate or distract.
  4. ↑ Infoplease Dictionary as pacification or diversion.
  5. ↑ Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil (1993). The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Houghton Mifflin.
  6. ↑ Leisure and Ancient Rome, By J. P. Toner full quote at p.69. For us in the modern world, leisure is secondary to work, but in ancient Rome leisure was central to social life and an integral part of its history.

Sources

  • Potter, D. and D. Mattingly, Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire. Ann Arbor (1999).
  • Rickman, G., The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome Oxford (1980).

Further reading

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