ABSTRACT
Providing ‘bread and circuses’ (Juv. Sat. 10.77-81) for the inhabitants of Rome was a major concern of Roman emperors. ‘The emperor did not neglect even actors and the other performers … knowing as he did that the Roman people are principally held fast by two things, the corn distributions and the shows …’ (Fronto, Princip. Hist. 17). Imperial generosity was not limited to the city of Rome, though, as Veyne notes in passing in the book which borrows Juvenal’s phrase as its title:
I hardly need to list the Imperial buildings erected in Italy and the provinces. It is enough to have shown that Augustus’ patronage was the origin of a public service and that it caused the Imperial government to abandon the narrow outlook of the City, which was that of the Republican censors, in favour of that of a great state.
