The evil was not in bread and circuses

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.“ — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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helenS · 36-40, F

Cicero is not right. The common people of the late Roman republic sold their rights to several warlords because they were expropriated by men like Cicero; free peasants were replaced by slaves. They had become a city mob, depending on social welfare, and that development destroyed the social base of SPQR.