Thoughts on Roman Circuses (and ours)

From history, we can glean more than just the bare facts of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. First, one has to understand that before Rome slowly toppled into dust, it was a very prosperous place. There was distinct upper, middle, lower and slave classes and, all in all, there was more than enough to eat and time to spare for numerous sports. Also, the Roman Legions were the largest and strongest, best trained and fed, best equipped with hardware aplenty of any nation-state-empire in the world at that time. Very similar, in fact to the U.S.A. (less a lot of technology).

roman empire america

Like all civilizations, once in a position of being fairly rich, having food aplenty and the good life, the better classes of Roman citizens got bored with it all. I mean how often can you discuss the latest conquest of some unknown and barbaric place, long removed from Rome or a new and flavorsome dish imported for some outpost of the Empire, or the latest dalliance of the current Emperor with some Egyptian babe.

So, what to do. A bored lower, middle and upper class of citizens tend to get into mischief when not productively employed and, with having slaves in good supply, can afford a minimal workload. As time progressed and the spoils of Empire Building and Conquering, Inc. flowed into Imperial Rome, there was a natural impulse on the part of the ruling elite to pass along a bit more of the spoils to the populous lest they become jealous or perhaps a bit rowdy at the obvious top-heavy distribution of the goodies. The elites lived very well in Imperial Rome.

But food and trinkets will stretch only so far—ah, what to do after you’ve eaten your fill, tummy full and had a nap? Well, you play, that’s what. You need something to fill those idle full-stomached hours and so the elite once again come to the rescue.

Let’s have some circuses come to town. Starting out with traveling entertainment groups, shows were put on of many sorts from dancing and singing to – ah – traveling trollops who entertained in their own inimitable way.

And another thing. We’ve got plenty of captured enemy soldiers, why don’t we built a pit, toss a few into it – well armed with, perhaps, some novel weapons like nets and forks and cudgels and see who comes out alive! What a wonderful idea. While we’re at it, there are a few pesky Christians we have to house and feed, perhaps they might like to play with some of those marvelous feline creatures our Legions have captured and sent back from places afar. We’ll starve the kitties for a few days, put a small group of trouble making religious bigots into the pit and see if they can play with a hungry cat or two. Such fun!

The smell of blood, guts and glory in the afternoon would be just the thing to entertain those bored citizens and keep their mind off the fact that we (the elite) are robbing them blind while doling out just enough for the lesser classes to keep them quiet, satiated and out of trouble.

And so the grand Colosseum and other assorted playgrounds were constructed to provide a location for circuses while markets were built to provide free food and handouts to those of lower wealth and standing.

roman colosseum

Does anything about this description ring a faint bell?

Let’s pop our trusty time machine forward a few thousand years to, let’s say, 2012 CE. (for those who wonder about the “C.E.”, that’s scientific notation for “Current Era”. Prior to year zero, it becomes “B. C. E.” for “Before Current Era” thereby erasing any Christian influence from our dating system. This is in wide and accepted use now in scientific circles.)

In 2012 in the Nation called “America”, we have some interesting and disturbing parallels to ancient Rome.

Such as, you ask? Oh, let us do a few comparisons.

In America, as in Rome, the elites are promising the middle and lower classes more and more bribes (food stamps, welfare, disability, housing subsidies, unemployment checks, social security, free medical care and so on and so on) to stay quiet and behave.

As with Rome, this was only successful until the food, circuses, graft, and thievery caused such a drain on the treasury that the Roman Legions found themselves running short of funding and consequently shrank a bit, thereby reducing the booty shipped back home. This, in turn, reduced the freebies to be distributed to the “needy”. A viscous circle was then in place in which each cut to the military caused a drop in booty that caused the military to shrink and Rome itself to become a Lesser Power with Lesser Influence on its world. After all, we can’t cut the freebies to the “needy” so money is diverted from other activities (can you spell “clipping” and dilution of gold and silver from the coinage or as we might say, “inflation”?) to cover the ever increasing costs of bread and circuses and military.

In our miserable case, American elites can only promise and pay for freebies to the masses as long as other nations of the world keep buying Treasury debt and the purchases of Federal debt by the Federal Reserve do not become so excessive that the rest of the world (and American citizens) lose confidence in our veracity and begin to think of the U.S. Government as merely a group of thieves and knaves, unworthy of their further donations of hard earned (or printed) cash. Which, of course, they already are and just are not branded as such. But they are about to be.

At the same time, American circuses are in full swing across the land of the not-so-free and the home of the responsible-no-more.

Thanks to the ever advancing thing called technology, clever humans have invented virtual circuses; circuses that require no tents, no clowns, no bearded ladies, no strong men or midgets, no motordrome with motorcycles roaring, no ferris wheel or tilt-a-whirl or cotton candy or too heavy bottles to knock over with a too light a ball. Real gladiators need not apply.

Oh no!! Our circuses are virtual in that you carry them around with you, by the hundreds, in your pocket or purse or have it on your desktop. You are now – whether rich, middle class or poor, working or not – always within instant reach of your virtual circus.

Within that virtual circus lies unlimited feasts of every kind: games, blogs, movies, tweets and books of faces, bank accounts and grocery stores, every retailer on the planet, Russian TV and – horrors – blogs (for those who yearn for news not to be found on our toothless and pap-filled U.S. mass media), maps and translators, idiots and morons, sages and teachers of every level and veracity.

It is an infinite circus, running 24 hours a day, 8 days a week and you can spend an infinite amount of time browsing the sweet and bitter end of it at no charge. (Those sites that have the temerity to charge admission can safely be ignored.)

Now, does that beat a Christian being munched by a tiger or two hulks beating each other to the death? Well, perhaps not the later as professional wrestling is one of the most popular events for the masses to gobble – so maybe even totally fake and choreographed gladiators still have a place in the proletariat heart.

I personally believe that the ever evolving circus (next comes 3D! and perhaps a touch screen that works in reverse?) beats the living bejeebus out of a Roman version and is, as a consequence, contributing to the destruction of the human spirit. Why work when your food and cave are furnished to you by a benevolent nanny Government which leaves you to be entertained by your virtual circus (access to which is probably paid for by that nanny caregiver as well)???

Why become self-sufficient and independent amid all this largess? Paid for, of course, by borrowing from foreigners and a generation or two down the line who won’t know what hit them until far too late. Such fun!

Perhaps we are indeed on the cusp of a Romanesque disaster, a slow motion collapse that took Rome several hundreds of years to do, getting poorer and poorer and more violent and less populated as time goes on.

History will certainly repeat, but never the same way twice.

This time, the very framework of those circuses – what they exist on and in – will enable the fall of the current empire(s) to be much swifter and just as violent and deadly. Our ability to communicate worldwide in a flash at the the speed of light enables information – both good and bad – to be heard and seen round the Earth in mere milliseconds and the only delay is the relative slowness of citizens to find, read or watch and comprehend the disaster that will tip it all into the pit.

So here we stand, on the edge, citizens mostly well fed, clothed, housed and most of all, thoroughly entertained.

What happens to all of us when the plug is pulled?

Author: MuckAbout

Retired Engineer and Scientist (electronic, optics, mechanical) lives in a pleasant retirement community in Central Florida. He is interested in almost everything and comments on most of it. A pragmatic libertarian at heart he welcomes comments on all that he writes.

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Stucky

Eddie

You mentioned Hadrian’s Wall.

If you want to read a fantasic article about that wall, then check out the Nat Geo link below;
(Roman Frontiers: Rome’s border walls were the beginning of its end.”). Muck, I think you’d like it as well.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/09/roman-walls/curry-text

Eddie
Eddie

Thanks. (going there now).

That country…I have an affinity for it…I think the bones of my ancestors must lie nearby…probably slaves who built the fuckin’ wall.

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

When you ride the wheel of fortune to its height you become a visionary.

When you become a visionary you get sycophants and groupies.

When you get groupies you get a big head.

When you get a big ego you fall off the wheel.

When you fall off the wheel crushes you.

Dont ride the wheel of fortune without an ejection seat.

Eddie
Eddie

No matter what the original purpose of the wall might have been, ultimately it became a series of “toll booths”.

More taxes. Sound familiar?

BB THE TROLL

TO tpc your own words and now actions mock you…silly … so pure ,so focused.,….now go pick on MA

ThePessimisticChemist
ThePessimisticChemist

Bad, bad!

comment image

Tator
Tator

Muck said: Actually empires (Roman or American) fail when they cease to grow.. Expansion can be physical (in the Roman case) or economic (in the American case).

I think there is another American expansion that stopped without much attention that really marks America’s zenith and beginning contraction. The cancellation of the Apollo missions to put men in space. I mark it as the point America started to contract like The Romans going into foreign lands.

backwardsevolution
backwardsevolution

Muck About – that was very well written. Thank you.

“In the prescient words of Leopold Kohr in his 1957 book Breakdown of Nations, “There seems only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. Whenever something is wrong, something is too big.”

AND:

“A small-state world would not only solve the problems of social brutality and war; it would solve the problems of oppression and tyranny. It would solve all problems arising from power.”

These quotes are taken from an interesting article entitled, “Major Powers Versus Small Nations: Globalization and the Issue of National Sovereignty”.

Tator
Tator

backwardsevolution quoted:
” “There seems only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. Whenever something is wrong, something is too big.””

I ran across this quote which is similar.
In all of history, no government became more honest, less corrupt, or granted its citizens more rights as it grew in size. E.L. 2011

indialantic
indialantic

There are many credible reasons why the Rome Empire failed. From what I have read, there were legions available to defend the city of Rome during the end times but they refused to fight when offered payment in base-metal coinage, instead of silver/gold. After the collapse and the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great to Christianity, “Roman Catholicism” (the Vatican) appears to be the only global influence that has survived. One billion souls…and growing.

backwardsevolution
backwardsevolution

Here’s the link from the article I quoted above – “Major Powers versus Small Nations”:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/major-powers-versus-small-nations-globalization-and-the-issue-of-national-sovereignty/5307957

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

Okay, this is a bit off subject, but not too much considering the Ruinmans debased their currency. Its from the AmCon website
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/does-government-debt-burden-our-grandkids/

gaius marius says:
October 18, 2012 at 10:33 am

Assume that the young workers today “pay for it” in the direct sense that they reduce their consumption by $100 billion, in order to invest in the additional $100 billion in government debt that has to be issued. (Thus, we are assuming unrealistically, for the sake of argument, that the higher government debt doesn’t “crowd out” private investment, just so we can see quite clearly why Baker and Krugman are wrong on this issue.)”

as a 20-year student of macro finance, i must interject: these are faulty statements of assumption.

please understand, we do not operate under a gold standard. the US does not have to raise gold by selling bonds in order to fund spending. that mechanism is an anachronism that dies decades ago.

we have a fiat currency convertible at a floating rate to other currencies. in this arrangement, the US Treasury creates money when it spends, and destroys it when it taxes.

it can then issue bonds if it likes, which is a simple swap of financial assets — cash is removed from the private sector and bonds are injected in like amount. the Fed can then use its unlimited balance sheet in the open market to dictate interest rates.

this is how the system works. it’s not an opinion or a theory. it’s a fact.

as such, the federal government is enabling net private sector financial surpluses by running deficits. it is creating financial assets ex nihilo for the private sector when it spends money; it destroys those assets when it taxes.

visualize it this way: draw a circle — this is the dollar universe; no dollars can transgress the perimeter. now draw an arbitrary line through it. if we then put one side of the line in surplus, the other side must by definition be in deficit. now label the surplus side “currency users/private sector”, and the other “the federal government”, and you have a basic model that explains why the federal government must generally run deficits for the good of the country.

to address your points specifically: young workers will never “pay for” the federal “debt”. this is a misunderstanding of what the federal “debt” is — it isn’t a debt at all. calling it “debt” is an anachronism of the gold standard age when governments were currency users captive to the amount of gold they could hoard, the same as any household. that is no longer true.

one can also see that conceiving of the private sector as losing $100bn by investing it in Treasuries is specious — they are participating in a straight swap with the government that merely substitutes assets (and very similar assets to boot). nor does that swap “crowd out” private sector investment. again, the level of assets in the system is unaffected by the swap.

indeed, by reducing tax and/or increasing spending rates to increase its deficit, the government — so far from injuring the private sector — adds net cash flow and income to private sector receipts. that income improves the balance sheet of the private sector, dollar for dollar. and whether the assets created are cash or Treasury bond matters little.

again, i’ve said nothing theoretical or opinionated here. i am describing the mechanical function of the system.

but now i will state an opinion: that politicians and economists remain largely ignorant of the monetary and fiscal operational reality of this country is a testament to the power of political disincentive to reinforce delusion in the face of reality.

moreover, this

The now-old retirees sell their 29-year-old bonds at their current market value of $236 billion (that’s the original $100 billion compounding at 3 percent annually for 29 years in a row).

is a stock-flow confusion. the bonds yield coupons, throwing off cash flow over the life of the bond that adds to the federal deficit and the private sector surplus. when the bonds mature, they are swapped for $100bn in cash, not $236bn.

Food for thought. Personally I think this system is inherently unstable whether deficits matter or not. Admin?

simon
simon

This post is interesting in its vacuousness.
The whole objective seems to hint that empire decline is due to DOD budget curtailments (?!?!)
Is this editorial meant for the numbnuts taking a break from MSM?

Luckily it wasn’t Administrator who wrote it. But why would Administrator –who more often than not shows quite a good grasp on resource scarcity, existing in a bounded/finite system, caveats of exponential growth– crosspost such infantile drivel?

Christopher Harrison

It’s nigh impossible to write anything shorter than a long essay discussing the fall of the Western Roman Empire alone, not to mention any comparison with America’s current trajectory.

The best source I’ve ever found on this matter is “The Collapse of Complex Civilizations” by Joseph Tainter. He devotes close to 1/3 of the book on the collapse of the WRE (the other 2/3 devoted to the Mayans and Anasazi).

Based on Tainter’s work and others I’ve read about Rome, I think that the seeds for Rome’s eventual collapse far predate the Empire itself, and were sown sometime back in the old Republic. Those seeds can best be described as follows.

Rome’s initial success came from conquest of its neighbors, plain and simple. Each conquest brought back a surge of material wealth in the form of plunder, which paid for the legions that participated in the conquest — and a lot more. This set into motion the idea that conquest = profit.

Each conquest also brought new lands under the control of Rome, which could then be opened up to settlement by the Roman soldiers and other enterprising folk. This provided a safety valve against social unrest due to increasing inequality and concentrated control over lands by the patrician class closer to Rome itself.

Each new conquest, however, entailed long-term administrative costs. Sure, Rome continued to profit from its new provinces after the conquest — but it was more of a slow trickle of wealth rather than the flash flood that occurred immediately after conquest. Factor in the administrative costs to govern and provide security for the new territories, and the net wealth extracted went down by several orders of magnitude.

During the earlier conquests (the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, Greece, and Macedonia), the end result was still quite profitable for Rome. However, by the time that Rome conquered Gaul, Asia Minor and North Africa — the administration and military policing expenditures were starting to cause a strain, even if it was not yet apparent due to the sheer amount of initial plunder. It was this strain — combined with an increasingly rigid patrician class that froze out the commoners from access to good lands through legal maneuvering — that eventually led to conditions where the returning soldiers lost their farms and ended up sleeping in the streets. It was this vast corruption and inequality that led to the rise of Julius Caesar, and later the enshrinement of the first emperor, Augustus Caesar, because they promised to do something to stop the corruption of the patrician senate and restore greater fairness to the people of Rome.

The Empire continued on for almost 5 centuries due to the production of some of the conquered areas — especially grain production from North Africa. However, by the reign of Marcus Aurelius at the end of the 2nd century C.E., it was clear that agricultural production was in decline. Policing the vast empire was taking up more and more resources, Germanic territories were abandoned as targets of expansion not only because of the fierce resistance of their inhabitants, but because they didn’t offer any plunder that was worth the difficulty of conquest. It was then that the Empire started to go into serious decline, because it just could not expand any further.

By this time, though, the Romans could not consider any alternative paths, because the notion of conquest = good was central to the Roman cultural mythos. So, they continued along trying to do the things that had always worked before — namely, adding increasing complexity and hierarchy to their systems of economy and administration (central to Tainter’s argument). Diocletian’s reign was very symbolic of this, when he effectively doubled down on the military (replacing many infantry legions with much more expensive but effective calvary) while cannibalizing the future productive capacity of the empire for the present. While this shored up problems in the short term, it created a catastrophe for the generations that followed. Finally, only a century after Diocletian’s reign, Rome was sacked by Alaric and the Goths in 406. Within 70 years the western empire ceased to exist completely, and Western Europe descended into a Dark Age from which it would take them almost 1000 years to fully recover.

Now, let’s compare this experience with that of America. We were able to consistently expand our territory through the conquest of our neighbors (Native Americans) without requiring much material expenditure. The conquered lands were opened up to enterprising individuals for settlement and cultivation, which helped to relieve pressures of social unrest due to increased inequality and more concentrated control of land in the older settlements along the East Coast. These lands also produced floods of material wealth in the form of agricultural commodities, and even precious metals (gold in the Black Hills and California, for instance). In the time leading up to the official closing of the frontier in 1890 and for 4+ decades after, the US began to experience greater labor unrest in its big cities as there was just no longer land available for settlement, and the land that was settled began to undergo the process of concentration of ownership. The populace aggregated more power to the central government in order to address issues of extreme corruption (like the Gilded Age leading to the Progressive Era). The US after WWII expanded into an overseas empire and directed resources toward a military sizable enough to police it. By the late 1970s, we began to pursue economic policies (the rise of finance over the productive economy) that were effectively cannibalizing the productive capacity of real entrepreneurs and workers. Simultaneously, our agricultural systems have started to suffer under the pressure of degraded soils — a situation that was only staved off by massive inputs of oil and chemicals, which will actually end up making things WORSE in the long haul when those inputs stop propping the system up.

Like many things in history, although it isn’t the same story, the lines rhyme an awful lot….

Administrator

Muck

Are you going to take that from simon?

Christopher Harrison

One more commonality — even as the Roman Empire was in inexorable decline, its inhabitants could not see the crumbling edifice around them, instead believing that somehow Rome’s best days were ahead of it. This to me is a striking similarity, as our politicians still continue to insist that America is on the cusp of a new Golden Age, even as any astute observer can find scores of happenings to support the idea that we’re actually rotting from the inside out.

Farmer Dave
Farmer Dave

The USA empire is superior to the Roman Empire because we have bread, circuses and … iGadgets!

Eddie
Eddie

“Why be nasty when you can be honest?”

Well fucking said.

(Dr. McCoy, check him for pods.)

Christopher Harrison

As a prelude to reading Tainter, I also suggest the essay “Peak Civilization” by Ugo Bardi.

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2009-09-03/peak-civilization-fall-roman-empire

Muck — just as a “warning,” Tainter’s book is not a quick and easy read. It’s essentially an archaeological and anthropological study and is written in more of a scholarly than prosaic text. But if you have the patience to muddle through it, it’s one of the more enlightening books I’ve ever read.

Administrator

Muck

Your article has over 15,000 reads on Zero Hedge.

Christopher Harrison

Here’s the quote I was looking for that demonstrates how Romans at the end of the WRE still believed that Rome would come roaring back, taken from the Ugo Bardi essay I provided a link for, above:

EXCERPT –
“Namatianus lived at a time that was very close to the last gasp of the Empire. He found that, at some point, it wasn’t possible to live in Rome any longer. Everything was collapsing around him and he decided to take a boat and leave. He was born in Gallia, that we call “France” today and apparently he had some properties in Southern France. So, that is where he headed for. That is the reason for the title “of his return”. He must have arrived there and survived for some time, because the document that he wrote about his travel has survived and we can still read it, even though the end is missing. So, Namatianus gives us this chilling report. Just read this excerpt:

“‘I have chosen the sea, since roads by land, if on the level, are flooded by rivers; if on higher ground, are beset with rocks. Since Tuscany and since the Aurelian highway, after suffering the outrages of Goths with fire or sword, can no longer control forest with homestead or river with bridge, it is better to entrust my sails to the wayward.’

“Can you believe that? If there was a thing that the Romans had always been proud of were their roads. These roads had a military purpose, of course, but everybody could use them. A Roman Empire without roads is not the Roman Empire, it is something else altogether. Think of Los Angeles without highways. “Sic transit gloria mundi” , as the Romans would say; there goes the glory of the world. Namatianus tells us also of silted harbors, deserted cities, a landscape of ruins that he sees as he moves north along the Italian coast.

“But what does Namatianus think of all this? Well, he sees the collapse all around him, but he can’t understand it. For him, the reasons of the fall of Rome are totally incomprehensible. He can only interpret what is going on as a temporary setback. Rome had hard times before but the Romans always rebounded and eventually triumphed over their enemies. It has always been like this, Rome will become powerful and rich again.

“There would be much more to say on this matter, but I think it is enough to say that the Romans did not really understand what was happening to their Empire, except in terms of military setbacks that they always saw as temporary. They always seemed to think that these setbacks could be redressed by increasing the size of the army and building more fortifications. Also, it gives us an idea of what it is like living a collapse “from the inside”. Most people just don’t see it happening – it is like being a fish: you don’t see the water.”

Eddie
Eddie

” it is better to entrust my sails to the wayward.”

Sell off and sail away. It’s worked before…always an option if you have the right boat. Just sayin’.

Administrator

Muck

I put a comment in giving you credit.

Jeebus – They said I submitted it. They didn’t say I wrote it.

I try to help a guy out, and this is what I get.

Christopher Harrison

@ Muck — no offense meant. I’m a younger engineer from the same second-rate university as Admin, plus I also have a degree in American History and have always been a voracious reader. I still found Tainter’s book to be rather dense when I read it.

Christopher Harrison

Muck — I make my living off of engineering. I always had a love of learning about history (Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was my idea of pleasure reading) and went back to school for it to try a career change into teaching. That didn’t work out (administrators don’t like new teachers who ask “why are we doing it this way?”) and I went back to engineering, got my PE, and here I am. I work as a consulting Resident Engineer on projects for the NYCDEP — water supply and wastewater for NYC. Unlike most of the other engineers I work with, I can actually put together a coherent paragraph and have good interpersonal skills. The latter especially serves me well working in construction.

Thanks for the compliment on my posts. I’m glad if at least one person has found value in them.

I read on here that you were experiencing some health concerns (again). I sincerely hope that everything is moving in a good direction on that front, and that none of it takes away any of your piss and vinegar.

All the best,
CH

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

“It is better to set my sails to the wayward”

Ejection Seat!

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

Good post Muck. Makes people think.

Admin should send you a TBP T-shirt.

Christopher thanks for the link to Bardi.

Sutton
Sutton

CE= Christian Era
BCE=Before Christian Era

sensetti
sensetti

Great read Muck, Thank’s

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