“Juvenal does not say is that the panem et circenses are either how the Roman people lost their power or how they are held under the control of emperors. Instead first the people lose their votes (no longer ‘selling’ them), then give up their cares and as a result only wish for panem et circenses, no longer taking an interest in public affairs.
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I don’t think we get the sense – as is often how the phrase is used today – of the people being bribed to give up their votes. Indeed, that’s the thing: the people stopped being able to sell their votes and so could only wish for bread and circuses (rather than buy them with their votes). Instead, the People weren’t bribed from their freedoms but broken and subjected to the lash by men like Crassus and Pompey and this one fellow we’re not going to name because Juvenal is a giant hypocrite who doesn’t want to get in trouble with the emperor either. They were thus reduced by violence to merely wishing for panem et circenses (which Juvenal, in appropriately Roman fashion, views as a cowardly abdication of duty).”
Oddly enough, panem et circenses fits. The Syrians lost their democracy in 1963 [1]. (“The coup was carried out without violence, as the politicians were too demoralized to resist. The coup was met by indifference in the population at large.”) Come half a century later and millions can only wish for enough food [2].
I agree it's remarkably (depressingly) fitting for Syria in its more nuanced interpretation.
I linked it because I thought it was an interesting read and provides a lot more context to the saying than wikipedia article. Since I read it, I am more suspicious of the typical, dismissive use of "bread and circuses."
