Bread and circuses

Bread and circuses. Back in the Roman Empire, those were the keys to diverting the public’s attention from political greed and corruption — and, particularly, from the massive gap between the rich and the poor.

Julius Caesar: “Give them bread and circuses.”

Rome won so many wars that it was overrun with captured slaves, and they performed the physical labor. Idle, unemployed Romans were restive. Julius Caesar perfected the ideal appeasement: give them wheat to eat and violent entertainment to savor — or, bread and circuses (panem et circenses).

It worked. Generally, the plebeians neither starved nor rioted. Salivating, they would watch gladiators slaughter animals and each other. Those gladiators were mainly slaves, but as they won laurels, they could win their freedom and rake in donations from the crowd.

In short, violence in the sporting world could be their ticket to riches. Or mutilation. It was a gamble.

Can you see any parallels with our society? (Julius Caesar had never heard of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.)

Dean Spanos: “Give them mediocre football…give me a stadium.”

You have to wonder if the same political strategy — bread and circuses — is at work in the United States to keep the people from reacting to ugly truths, such as 95 percent of the economic gains in this recovery have gone to the richest 1 percent, and the majority of National Football League owners are billionaires but get taxpayers to plunk down 70 to 80 percent of the cost of new stadiums.

The professional sports leagues are joined at the hip with federal, state, and local governments. Do you suppose today’s bread and circuses constitute a covert politician/pro-league plan to pacify the proletariat?

Is the United States as bloodthirsty as ancient Rome? The Minnesota Orchestra, one of the nation’s best, was silenced for 15 months in a lockout, and its internationally celebrated music director resigned, although there is hope he will return. In negotiating a settlement, the players took an average annual salary cut from $135,000 to $118,000.