"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,[1] 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.[2][3][4] The phrase implies a population's erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.[citation needed]
This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (c.100 AD). In context, the Latinpanem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining interest of a Roman populace that no longer cares for its historical birthright of political involvement.[citation needed]
[...] 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. [...]
... 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.[5]
—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 earliest known Annona (the gift of free or subsidised grain to nominated citizens) was begun under the instigation of the aristocratic politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 BC. The annona remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.
↑ 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).
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