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Updated: June 25, 2025
He ventured to remind his master of the saying that the Alexandrians must have 'Panem et circenses'; they did not trouble themselves much about anything else. In these days, when there had been neither games, nor pageants, nor distribution of corn, the Romans and Caesar had been their sole subjects of conversation. However, there was to be something quite unusually grand in the Circus to-night.
The costly extravagance of the Government amidst which the degraded Minister's ostentation was even more conspicuous than that of the Protector himself could have had no other source but plunder, for of legitimate revenue there was scarcely enough to carry on the expenses of the Government certainly none for luxurious ostentation; which, nevertheless, emulated that of the Roman Empire in its worst period but without the "panem et circenses."
What more than this, that having sold its daily quantum of chocolate, it shall have a theatre to go to, a spectacle to look at, ices, coffee, and eau sucrée! Since the world began to open its young eyes and look about it with any understanding, what else has been desirable? What does a man and a grocer want? Panem et circenses; soup that shall not be too maigre; and a seat at the Porte St.
Often, indeed, it is disgraced by the characteristics of a slavish populace, a mean selfishness, a mad frivolity, and fawning adulation on the ruler who dispenses panem et circenses. Such has been the course of many a political reaction, from the time of degenerate Athens and imperial Rome down to the decay of Medicean Florence and the orgies of the restored Stuarts.
It was characteristic of the power which such a use of wealth may give that the mobs who smashed the Hyde Park railings stopped to cheer before the house of Lady Burdett Coutts. Luckily none of our political nobles has ever bethought himself of the means by which the great Roman leaders rose habitually to influence or won over the labouring masses by "panem et Circenses."
The guild yacht races off Marblehead take place next week, and you will be able to judge for yourself of the popular enthusiasm which such events nowadays call out as compared with your day. The demand for 'panem ef circenses' preferred by the Roman populace is recognized nowadays as a wholly reasonable one.
The Newcomes of to-day, like their prototype in the novel, may very well have come to the belief that there is no salvation from that besetting demon of reason and "intellectual pride," but in a religion of sensuousness and externalism which Sydney Smith, himself, of course, a clergyman, once contemptuously designated as "painted jackets and sanctified watering-pots". Panem et Circenses!
When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again, and consider whether it is worth while to open it consider whether it is worth while to open it. By Oliver Wendell Holmes This is the new version of the Panem et Circenses of the Roman populace. It is our ultimatum, as that was theirs. They must have something to eat, and the circus-shows to look at.
There was a distribution of food, as well as sports of all kinds, reminding one of the times of the Roman Emperors: panem et circenses. On the Place de la Concorde had been built four large wooden halls for public balls. The cold was severe; there was a hard frost, but this did not check the universal enjoyment.
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.
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