bread and circuses
{{Short description|Figure of speech referring to a superficial means of appeasement}}
{{about|a concept in political satire|other uses|Bread and Circuses (disambiguation)}}
"Bread and circuses" (or "bread and games"; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metonymic phrase referring to superficial appeasement. It is attributed to Juvenal (Satires, Satire X), a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD, and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.
In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace,{{Cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bread+and+circuses|title=Definition of BREAD AND CIRCUSES|website=www.merriam-webster.com|date=October 2023 }} by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses). Juvenal originally used it to decry the "selfishness" of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.Juvenal's literary and cultural influence (Book IV: Satire 10.81){{cite web|url=http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/bread%20and%20circuses|title=American Heritage Dictionary: to placate or distract.|work=Yahoo|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105143821/http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/bread%20and%20circuses|archivedate=2012-11-05}}[http://dictionary.infoplease.com/bread-and-circuses Infoplease Dictionary] as pacification or diversion. The phrase implies a population's erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.{{cn|date=May 2024}}
Ancient Rome
{{Further|Cura annonae#Politics and officials}}
This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal ({{circa|100 AD}}), who saw "bread and circuses" (panem et circenses) as emblematic of the loss of republican political liberty:{{cite book |first=Catherine |last=Keane |title=Figuring Genre in Roman Satire |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2006 |page=36 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780195183306.001.0001}}{{cite book |first=Eckhart |last=Köhne |chapter=Bread and Circuses: The Politics of Entertainment |title=Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome |publisher=University of California Press |date=2000 |page=8 |hdl=2027/mdp.39015049512638}}
{{verse translation|lang=la|
[...] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / vendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. [...]
|attr1=Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81
|
... 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.By J. P. Toner full quote at p.69.
}}
Juvenal refers to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens (the Annona) as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. In much modern literature, this represents the Annona as a "briberous and corrupting attempt of the Roman emperors to cover up the fact that they were selfish and incompetent tyrants".{{cite journal |last=Erdkamp |first=Paul |title=Feeding Rome? Or Feeding Mars? A Long-Term Approach To C. Gracchus' 'Lex Frumentaria' |journal=Ancient Society |volume=30 |date=2000 |pages=53–70 |jstor=44079806}} Yet Augustus disapproved even the idea of a grain dole on moral grounds, even though he and every emperor after him took the responsibility and credit for ensuring the supply to citizens who qualified for it.{{cite book |last=Spaeth |first=Barbette Stanley |author-link=Barbette Spaeth |title=The Roman goddess Ceres |publisher=University of Texas Press |date=1996 |pages=47-48, 88, 98 |isbn=0-292-77693-4}}{{cite journal |last=Hayne |first=Léonie |title=The First Cerialia |journal=L'Antiquité Cģlassique |volume=60 |date=1991 |pages=131-140 |jstor=41655332}}
See also
{{Div col}}
- {{annotated link|Amusing Ourselves to Death|Amusing Ourselves to Death}}
- {{annotated link|Battle Royale (novel)|Battle Royale}}
- {{annotated link|Battle Royale (film)|Battle Royale (film)}}
- {{annotated link|Brave New World| Brave New World}}
- "Bread and Circuses" (Star Trek: The Original Series), a 1968 episode of Star Trek
- {{annotated link|Bread and roses}}
- {{annotated link|Colosseum}}
- {{annotated link|Cura Annonae}}
- {{annotated link|Fahrenheit 451|Fahrenheit 451}}
- {{annotated link|Idiocracy| Idiocracy}}
- {{annotated link|Idiot|Idiot/idiocy (Athenian democracy)}}
- {{annotated link|Instrumentum regni}}
- List of Latin phrases
- Panem, the setting of the young adult book series The Hunger Games and its film adaptations
- Prolefeed, a word similar with "circuses," in the fictional language Newspeak of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
- {{annotated link|Plebs}}
- Theatre state - ritual entertainment as the pre-eminent element in a political system
- {{annotated link|Yumin zhengce}}
{{div col end}}
Notes
{{Reflist}}
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
{{wiktionary|bread and circuses}}
{{Portal|Ancient Rome}}
- [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/juvenal.html Juvenal's 16 "Satires" in Latin], at The Latin Library
- [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/juvenalpersius-intro.html Juvenal's first 3 "Satires" in English]
{{Authority control}}
Category:Culture of ancient Rome
Category:Latin philosophical phrases