Bread and circuses: mass entertainment focusing on emotional and sensory stimulation has put Americans in danger of suffering the fate of the Romans, who entertained themselves into oblivion. (Mass Entertainment).

The Roman satirist Juvenal, writing in the first century AD, lamented that "the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things --bread and circuses." Juvenal had the misfortune of living in a time when the civic virtues of the early Roman republic were a distant memory, when the moral dry rot, which eventually destroyed Rome from within, was already far advanced. Juvenal saw that the Roman citizenry had become so addicted to entertainment and pleasure that they had lost the capability of governing themselves. Juvenal's scornful term "panem et circenses" -- bread and circuses -- has become ...