Panem et Circense : Blood, Bread, and Battle

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The Coliseum is really cool place to look at. The Coliseum was finished around 80 A.D.; it took 10 whole years to build it. It is made of marble and limestone. Within the Coliseum they had seat around the edging of the building. It could seat about 45,000 – 50,000 people in it. People would gather to the coliseum to watch Gladiators swing swords to kill each other to death. They also came to watch warriors kill animals in the arena, and to watch animals attack each other. Along with all of the fighting, people were able to receive free food at the coliseum. Get free food and get free fights to watch. It would be a great place to have fun. But all of this is the origin of Panem et Circenses Latin for “Bread and Circuses.”

Juvenal (Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis) is known as the man who first introduced the concept of “Bread and Circuses.” In his poem in the book: IV Satire X: Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering. He was a wise man and made many insightful poems. With his wisdom he realized what was happening and he made this poem. The Poem describes how the people have accepted free inhuman entertainment and slow destruction of civic duty of a common man. With that he came up with the phrase “Bread and Circuses”. He got the bread from the free food that emperor provided at the coliseum, and the circuses came from free entertainment from the gladiator fights.

Human nature during this time was rather inhuman. The gladiators were slaves, rebels, criminals, and Christians. They had to fight against each other. The fighters used anyway possible to win a fight. They had to because if they fought and made the crowd happy and get the emperor’s thumbs up; they can be released and live their life again. If the gladiator did not make crowd h...

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