Bread and Circus

In a recent email conversation with Mark Watkins, a friend in New England, he suggested that the current presidential race had something of a bread and circus mentality. That, it turn led to some further ruminations. Perhaps it began with the weakening and repeal of political checks and balances over more than a decade. Then there were the wars. But economic issues, including the impoverishment and reduction of the middle class as a result of pressure from low cost immigrant labor and dramatic enrichment of the upper classes also contributed to the instability. Finally, after a virtually dictatorial regime, two contenders rose and competed for pre-eminance. One, a handsome soldier in his youth with a record of extraordinary service during a time of national crisis, had become a maverick politician attempting to bestride the diverse values and interests of the several factions within in his party. The other, relatively younger man, known for many things, among them an inspiring, rhetorical skill and a kind of international popularity, had amassed much greater wealth which he used in innovative ways to gain political support and build a broad coalition. Both campaigned by promising outright gifts to the impoverished and stressed middle class while conducting devastating, surreptitious personal attacks.

Gnaeus Pompey, the elder statesman and one time military hero, eventually abandoned Rome and fled before his younger, more innovative rival, Gaius Julius Caesar. Years later, Juvenal satirized the political strategy of appealing to the masses as Pompey and Caesar had done as “Bread and Circus,” referring to the promise of food and gladiatorial entertainment. After a devastating defeat at Dyrrhachium, Pompey fled to Egypt where he was summarily executed.

Historical analogies are both dangerous and important. For every similarity between that time and ours there is an equally compelling difference. Nevertheless, one obvious and terrible principle clearly emerges. A mathematical term, which may be somewhat obscure, is pertinent.

Republics are points of unstable equilibrium. They survive as long as many forces, political, economic and social are balanced and checked. But that balance can be weakened to collapse in many ways: by partisan manipulation of the public confidence in electoral enfranchisement, for example, or cultivation of an electorate unable or uninterested in evaluating candidates and issues with rational, critical intelligence.

During the Renaissance, during the flowering of another republic in Florence, the virtue of “synoekismus” was valued as one of the most important of celebrated ancient heroes such as Moses and Theseus. In simple terms it means the ability to bring many communities together so that they form one. This morning I read that Colin Powell has announced his support for Senator Barack Obama for president.