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Of "panem et circenses" we have all heard, and know that eleemosynary bread and the public amusements of the day supplied the material and æsthetic wants of many Romans. But men so fed and so amused were sure to need further occupations.
Panem et circenses: that was the Roman law in regard to the poor; a dire and perhaps a necessary evil wherever a landed aristocracy exists. "To feed these hungry mouths, grain was brought from Africa and the provinces, and distributed gratuitously among the needy. In the time of Caesar, three hundred and twenty thousand people were thus fed.
But Italy does not want tragedies she wishes to be sung to, danced to, made eyes at, flattered and amused! Give her anything, anything that shall help her to forget her own abasement. Panem et circenses! that is always her cry. And who can wonder that her sovereigns and statesmen are willing to humour her, when even her poets stoop to play the mountebank for her diversion?"
It is all very nice, nay, pleasant even, to feel hungry when there is a prospect of a good "feed" in the tin dish; but how frequently do we find a "southerly wind" prevailing in that receptacle for "panem;" and what is there, I ask, in "Fanny Adams" alternated with "salt junk?" In the one, nausea; in the other, mahogany. Friday, October 14th.
One reptile devours another.... If there hadn’t been a murder, they’d have been angry and gone home ill-humored. It’s a spectacle they want! Panem et circenses. Though I am one to talk! Have you any water? Give me a drink for Christ’s sake!” He suddenly clutched his head. The usher at once approached him. Alyosha jumped up and cried, “He is ill.
Consequently, we have not now a man for a deputy. But why should we complain? Does not Paris undertake to live, to think for us? Does she not deign to cast to us, as of yore the Roman Senate cast to the suburban plebeians, our food for the day-bread and vaudevilles 'panem et circenses'. Yes, Monsieur, let us turn from the past to the present to France of to-day!
Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect because it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place to push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the card to read off and he read out Panem de coelo praestitisti eis and Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time and asking her but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just answered with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she heartbroken about her best boy throwing her over.
Indeed the hint of the character seems to have been taken from what Juvenal says of Otho: "Speculum civilis sarcina belli. Nimirum summi ducis est occidere Galbam, Et curare cutem summi constantia civis, Bedriaci in campo spolium affectare Palati Et pressum in faciem digitis extendere panem." These are excellent lines in a satire.
This conversation revealed to Odo a third conception of the religious idea. In Piedmont religion imposed itself as a military discipline, the enforced duty of the Christian citizen to the heavenly state; to the Duke it was a means of purchasing spiritual immunity from the consequences of bodily weakness; to the Bishop, it replaced the panem et circenses of ancient Rome.
"Back to the country." "When shall I see you again?" "I wonder," said Io. Panem et Circenses; bread and the Big Show. The diagnosis of the satyr-like mathematician had been accurate. That same method whereby the tyrants of Rome had sought to beguile the restless and unthinking multitude, Banneker adopted to capture and lead the sensation-avid metropolitan public through his newspaper.
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