"The evil was not in bread and circuses,
per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men
for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract
them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease."
But is this Cicero? It might be a misattribution. According to Wikiquotes, the lines are from Ben Moreell, "Of Bread and Circuses", The Freeman, January 1956, pp. 29–32. The quotation is from the left
column of p. 31 in the original publication. Moreell's piece makes no mention
of Cicero, but opens with a correct attribution of the phrase "Bread and circuses" to Juvenal.
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