Circuses, But No Bread

President Trump is fond of hyperbole, as he himself admitted in The Art of the Deal. He is particularly fond of describing himself and his accomplishments in superlatives – positive ones, of course. Not only is he the greatest president our “Country” has ever had, but some of the feats he has done or intends to do have never before been accomplished in all of history. He has reduced crime to numbers “the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before,” and economic growth has been such that “we’ve never seen anything like it.” All this is “unpresidented,” as he informed us earlier in his presidency, before someone gave him a tutorial.

Such claims go way beyond hyperbole, which is often simply exaggeration used for emphasis and not necessarily meant to be taken seriously. They are so obviously false as to require no further discussion.

A different situation is presented by the event just now in progress, which Trump has planned to celebrate his eightieth birthday, Sunday, June 14, though ostensibly also in honor of the nation’s 250th. Following preliminary celebrations on Friday and Saturday, mixed martial arts fighters will compete in ultimate fighting championship contests. These will take place on the South Lawn of the White House in an octagonal arena built for the purpose and topped by a four-sided arch, 90 feet tall, decorated with American flags and supporting lights and speakers.

It is interesting to consider whether and to what extent this event is truly one of Trump’s “firsts,” something “we’ve never seen before.” When one thinks about it, the first thing that springs to mind is the circuses of ancient Rome, those huge, lavish entertainments Roman emperors offered to the populace. Many of the details and circumstances parallel those of our current spectacle.

First of all, motive. The population of Rome, a densely packed city of rich patricians living in palaces alongside the plebs inhabiting slums like the Suburra, was a highly combustible mixture. When discontented, hoi polloi were likely to riot. Augustus Caesar, before he became the first Roman emperor, and Mark Antony were both pelted with stones in the Forum, the Emperor Claudius was also attacked and had to be rescued by the military, and other emperors too experienced various forms of unpleasantness, not excluding murder, at the hands of the mob. These dignitaries, therefore, found it expedient to distract the people, who had been deprived of the vote when the Roman Republic was abolished, from their grievances. Just so, it is now necessary to distract people from the erosion of their rights as well as from the coverup of the Epstein Files, a coverup of which most Americans, regardless of party or ideology, strongly disapprove (what we learned experts in pig-Latin might call Distractio Epsteinensis).

There are other notable parallels as well. The Emperor Vespasian built the Colosseum for Roman circuses. Trump built the Octagon. Many, if not most, entertainments offered to the Roman people were brutal and bloody – such edifying spectacles as gladiatorial contests where one contestant was almost always killed. Trump too has chosen contests where people are punched, slammed to the ground and kicked in the face – just a mite gentler than the Roman ones, but the best that can be done in our effete age. And we mustn’t forget the self-glorifying aspect that such offerings have in common. The emperors and our aspiring emperor are proclaiming to the world their power, their importance and their wealth (or that of their supporters).

Despite these similarities, there is a huge, unbridgeable difference between the Roman festivals and the event currently taking place in Washington. Roman emperors pacified their subjects with distributions of grain as well as spectacles. In republican times – Rome’s, certainly not ours! – an allotment of grain was regularly distributed to the citizens (the first entitlement program?). That was no longer so under the empire, but the emperors found it politic to avert famine, which frequently afflicted the Roman population because of its dependence on grain brought in from Sicily and North Africa. Not for nothing did Juvenal dub the whole imperial practice in dealing with a restive population “Bread and Circuses.”

Well, Trump seems to have forgotten the bread. He not only failed to provide any Americans with an adequate amount, he actually took a lot of it away from them. His Big Beautiful Bill cut 187 billion dollars from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while more stringent work requirements kicked millions of people off the rolls. The retaliatory tariffs imposed on American goods in response to those Trump slapped on other nations’ deprived Americans, particularly farmers, of markets. The high prices of gas and diesel, brought about by his war with Iran, deprived them of fertilizer. And, of course, all Americans except the ever-increasing ranks of billionaires now suffer from the Trump-induced inflation and deteriorating economy.

It remains to be seen whether circuses without bread will sufficiently distract ordinary people from their ills. If history is any guide, I would guess not. Roman crowds tended to get really unpleasant when hungry. No society is more than three meals away from revolution (an aphorism originally from Alfred Henry Lewis, though in a slightly different form.) Of course, unlike the Romans, we have not been deprived of the vote – yet. But we must pay attention to Juvenal. According to him, Romans had themselves to blame for their servile condition. They had brought it on themselves when they permitted their republic to be usurped by emperors. As he said to them:

“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”

We, Democrats, Republicans, independents, knownothings, all of us, would do well to heed the alarm Juvenal has sounded for us across the centuries.