Bread and Circuses
I was driving back to the office from an appointment today and heard on the radio that there were demonstrations in Athens this morning in sympathy with the Italians against proposed austerity measures. I immediately started to reflect on the number of demonstrations/riots in Europe in the past few months because of budget tightening measures necessitated by the rapidly failing social states of Europe. The first phrase that came to my mind was how angry people get when their bread and circuses get reduced which got me to thinking of where the phrase Bread and Circuses came from. The phrase comes from the Roman playwright Juvenal who wrote … More after the Jump…