Bread and circuses
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Since, then, all passionate excitement is forbidden us, we are debarred from every kind of spectacle, and especially from the circus" --De spectaculis by Tertullian "Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny." --Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1549) by Étienne de La Boétie |
Illustration: Pollice Verso by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872
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"Bread and circuses" (or Bread and games) (from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metaphor for handouts and petty amusements that politicians use to gain popular support, instead of gaining it through sound policy. The phrase is invoked not only to criticize politicians, but also to criticize their supporters for giving up their civic duty.
Bread and circuses was how the Roman satirist Juvenal characterized the imperial leadership's way of placating the masses.
Bread and circuses has come to be a derogatory 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 the speaker considers 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.
See also
- List of Latin phrases
- Prolefeed
- Roman circus
- Colosseum
- Plebeian
- Prolefeed
- Idiot/idiocy (Athenian democracy)
- Opium of the people
- Culture industry
- Grain supply to the city of Rome
- Amusing Ourselves to Death
- Brave New World
- Battle Royale
- The Hunger Games
Further reading
