Bread and circuses

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"Bread and circuses" is a phrase that can criticize either government policies to pacify the citizenry, or the shallow, decadent desires of that same citizenry. In both cases, it refers to low-cost, low-quality, high-availability food and entertainment that have become the sole concern of the People, to the exclusion of matters that some consider more important: e.g. the Arts, public works projects, human rights, or democracy itself. The phrase is commonly used to refer to short-term government palliatives offered in place of a solution for significant, long-term problems.

History

This phrase originates in Satire X of the Roman poet Juvenal of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries. In context, the Latin phrase panem et circenses (bread and circuses) is given as the only remaining cares of a Roman populace which has given up its birthright of political freedom:

... 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

... 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 elite Roman practice of providing free wheat to some poor Romans as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power through popularity. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the populist Gracchi in 123 BC; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the Roman emperors.

A reference in the The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (1993) states that Juvenal displayed his contempt for the declining heroism of his contemporary Romans in this passage. Spanish intellectuals between the 19th and 20th centuries complained about the similar pan y toros ("bread and bullfights").

Bread and circuses in popular culture

An episode of Star Trek: The Original Series uses the title "Bread and Circuses." In this story, Captain Kirk and his companions are forced to fight in gladiatorial games on a planet modeled after the Roman Empire as the crew of the Enterprise tries to find fellow humans from Earth that crashed there six years earlier.

London-based punk band Million Dead have a song titled "Bread and Circuses" on their second album "Harmony No Harmony". It contains the lyrics "If every hour that I have spent stuck in a circus was spent learning a language, I’d have so much more to say. And if every penny that I have spent on processed bread was spent on growing my own food, my skin wouldn’t look so grey."

The Pet Shop Boys mention the phrase in two songs, "The sound of the atom splitting" (bread and circuses) and "Luna Park" (with circuses and bread we're happy)

Argentine comedian Enrique Pinti has a classic monologue about society called 'Pan y Circo' (Bread and Circuses)

The Brazilian Tropicália movement's musical manifesto is titled Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses, which was misremembered Latin from Tropicalista Caetano Veloso's school days. Leading tropicalia band Os Mutantes also recorded a song on their first album titled "Panis et Circenses".

The solo debut album The Adversary of the Emperor frontman Ihsahn has a song named "Panem et Circenses".

The British jazz fusion band Colosseum released an album in 1997 entitled Bread & Circuses.

The debut album of Toad the Wet Sprocket was titled Bread & Circus.

A Norwegian surreal horror-movie from 2003 is called Bread and Circus.

"Bread and Circus" was the name of a chain of supermarkets in Massachusetts focusing on natural and organic foods. They were acquired by Whole Foods Market in 1992, and brought under the Whole Foods Market name in 2003.

"Bread and Circus" is the name of a popular program on WOBC-FM radio out of Oberlin, Ohio.

Notes

References

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).

External links