The etymological root of the term “Archon”

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How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!
— Samuel Adams

Archon (Greek: ἄρχων, romanized: árchōn) is the Greek term for “ruler”. Cognate derivatives are, e.g., terms such as:

  • monarchy
  • dyarchy
  • hierarchy
  • patriarchy/matriarchy
  • gynarchy
  • autarchy
  • anarchy (etymology discussed subsequently in more detail)

According to Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians (78-c. 100), the power and influence of the king first devolved to the archons, and these offices were filled from the aristocracy by elections on a decennial basis.

Archon Eponymos was the primary magistrate, the Polemarch referred to the head of the armed forces, and the Archon Basileus was in charge of the religious aspects of society.
Various fraternities and sororities use the title of archon or variations on it. Some Gnostic sects used this term for demons associated with the planetspheres.

3-D computer rendering of an “archon”

The term anarchy is the negation of the term archon (i.e., the negatory prefix *a). It thus means “without a ruler/master”, i.e., human beings that do not accept a master and who do not allow others to rule over them (they are not slaves to anyone). Importantly, this derivation should not be confused with “chaos or without rules”. Anarchy simply is the negation of slavery.

Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein. ‘
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Transl.: None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.)

Human beings who are anarchists are thus literally beings that do not accept to be ruled by archons, i.e., they are free and cannot be ruled and suppressed by external forces (they only subordinate themselves to natural law, viz., the timeless universal metaphysical foundation of morality and ethics; cf. the Kantian categorical imperative).

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
— Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Fulltext: archive.org/details/groundingformet000kant

In this context a quotation by the freedom fighter Malcolm X is of great pertinence.
He asked the following quintessential question concerning the highest of all virtues:

What is the price of freedom?

Answer
Death.

P.S. This does not imply that one has to die to be free, but it means that one has to be willing to risk once own life for the greatest of all goods, viz., the ultimate expression of human potential: Absolute Freedom.
If one is not willing to go “all in” one has lost the quest for freedom a priori because one is not willing to risk what it takes to achieve it. Fear is the inhibitor of freedom. Death is the mother of all fears. Ergo, overcoming the irrational fear of death is a condicio sine qua non for the obtainment of superordinate transcendental values.

Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Freedom comes with wisdom, intrinsically. They are inseparable, and no society wants people to be free. The communist society, the fascist society, the capitalist society, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian – no society likes people to use their own intelligence because the moment they start using their intelligence they become dangerous – dangerous to the establishment, dangerous to the people who are in power, dangerous to the “haves”; dangerous to all kinds of oppression, exploitation, suppression; dangerous to the churches, dangerous to the states, dangerous to the nations.

In fact, a wise man is afire, alive, aflame. He would like rather to die than to be enslaved. Death will not matter much to him, but he cannot sell his life to all kinds of stupidities, to all kinds of stupid people. He cannot serve them. Hence, the societies down the ages have been supplying you with false knowing. That’s the very function of your schools, colleges, universities.

They don’t serve you, remember, they serve the past, they serve the vested interests. Of course, they go on puffing your ego up bigger and bigger, they go on giving you more and more degrees. Your name becomes longer and longer, but only the name – you go on becoming shorter and shorter. A point comes where there are only certificates and the man has disappeared. First the man carries the certificates, then the certificates carry the man. The man is long dead.
~Osho

Sir Francis Galton (*1822;†1911): Hereditary Genius

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Sir Francis Galton, was an English Victorian era statistician, polymath, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, and psychometrician. He was knighted in 1909.

Galton produced over 340 papers and books. He also created the statistical concept of correlation and widely promoted regression toward the mean. He was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies.

He was a pioneer in eugenics, coining the term itself and the phrase “nature versus nurture”. His book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness.

As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics (the science of measuring mental faculties) and differential psychology and the lexical hypothesis of personality. He devised a method for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science. He also conducted research on the power of prayer, concluding it had none by its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for. His quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making tea.

LibriVox

Hereditary Genius

A biographical summary of the pre-eminent men of Britain grouped by profession. The extensive survey draws from information including college graduation, reputation during career, fellowships, and even known relatives. Includes discussions on findings and observations as well as referenced appendices. - Summary by Leon Harvey
Hereditary Genius
  • Preface
  • Introductory Chapter
  • Classification of Men According to Their Reputation
  • Classification of Men According to Their Natural Gifts
  • Comparison of the Two Classifications
  • Notation
  • The Judges of England Between 1660 and 1865
  • Statesmen
  • English Peerages. Their Influence Upon Race
  • Commanders
  • Literary Men
  • Men of Science
  • Poets
  • Musicians
  • Painters
  • Divines
  • Senior Classics of Cambridge
  • Oarsmen
  • Wrestlers of the North Country
  • Comparison of Results
  • The Comparative Worth of Different Races
  • Influences That Affect the General Ability of Nations
  • General Considerations
  • Appendix

J. Edgar Hoover on “monstrous conspiracy and morality”

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The individual comes face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind has not come to a realisation of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.

 

When morals decline and good men do nothing, evil flourishes. A society unwilling to learn from past is doomed. We must never forget our history.

John Edgar Hoover was an American law enforcement administrator and the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. He was appointed as the director of the Bureau of Investigation – the FBI’s predecessor – in 1924 and was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77

Prof. Rainer Mausfeld – Neoliberal indoctrination: Why do the lambs remain silent?

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www.uni-kiel.de/psychologie/mausfeld/
Mausfeld_Why do the lambs remain silent_2015
 Mausfeld focuses on perceptual psychology and also works on the theoretical foundations of experimental psychology and the psychology of understanding. He also deals with the rivalry of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience in cognitive science. Another area of interest is the history of ideas in the natural sciences. He sees a major problem of the relationship between psychology and biology in neurological neo-reductionism. In contrast to biologistic approaches, he sees the peculiarity of the spiritual, inter alia, in the intrinsic multiperspectivity of the mind.
Mausfeld points out that knowledge of neural circuitry and activity is not enough to explain consciousness and thought processes. Not even the behavior of nematodes can be deduced from the activity of their 302 neurons. According to Mausfeld’s view, the relationship between nature and mind must be below the neural level in the sphere of physics. Evidence is given by the fact that nature is actually more enigmatic to us than our consciousness in itself. In modern physics it has become clear that the physical does not have the properties of matter ascribed to it. Mausfeld sees the special aspect of consciousness in the simplicity and wholeness of the subjective experience, which, however, reveals itself to the psychologist as a complex interaction of unconscious factors. The intrinsic multiperspectivity of thinking, which first opens up the possibilities for thought and action alternatives to humans after mouse field, results from the complex interplay of the most varied of factors.
White torture and responsibility of science
In his work, Mausfeld illustrates the role of psychologists in the development, application and justification of modern white torture methods. These goals are not, as claimed, the extraction of information, but rather breaking the will, disciplining, humiliating and shaming the victims. In his account, an American Psychological Association (APA) working group to investigate the involvement of psychologists acting on behalf of the Defense Secretary. Mausfeld uses the example of torture research to define ethical and legal principles and limits of scientific work. He regards the observance of human rights as fully binding.

Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychology , ’ white torture ’ and the responsibility of scientists. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1186/s12882-018-0886-5
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychologie, weiße folter’ und die verantwortlichkeit von wissenschaftlern. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1026/0033-3042.60.4.229
DOI URL
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Cognitive techniques

According to Mausfeld, the cognitive ones are more important than the affective techniques, since opinions are more stable than emotions. Here Mausfeld examines the following methods:

  • Representation of facts as opinion
  • Fragmenting coherent facts so that the context, such as the historical context, is lost
  • Decontextualization of facts: The context of the facts is removed, so that the facts become incomprehensible isolated individual cases, which have no general relevance
  • Misleading recontextualization: Information is embedded in a foreign context, so that they take on a different character and, for example, no longer lead to outrage in human rights violations.
  • Repetition supports the “perceived truth”
  • Designing the range of opinions so that the desired seems to be in the middle, which most people strive for, if they are unfamiliar, because they then keep to the middle seein it as “neutral and balanced”
  • Making facts invisible through media selection, distraction and attention control
  • “Meta-propaganda”: It is part of every propaganda to claim that the news of the enemy is wrong because it is propaganda

The development of more efficient manipulation techniques rests on identifying psychological “weak spots” – those intrinsic design aspects of our mind and principles of human information processing that can be exploited for manipulation purposes. Most importantly, such principles are, by the very nature of our cognitive architecture, beyond conscious control. (…) Our mind has many hard-wired weaknesses that can be exploited for manipulative purposes, that facilitate our utilitarian abuse by the political and economic elites for maintaining and expanding their power. However, we also innately dispose of a rich repertoire of ways to use our reasoning capabilities to recognize manipulative contexts and to actively avoid them. This repertoire is akin to a natural cognitive immune system against being manipulated, but we have to take the deliberate decision to actually use it.


neoliberal indoctrination - Copy

Further References

Mausfeld, R.. (2012). On some unwarranted tacit assumptions in cognitive neuroscience. Frontiers in Psychology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00067
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R., & Heyer, D.. (2012). Colour Perception: Mind and the physical world. Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198505006.001.0001
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2005). The Physicalistic Trap in Perception Theory. In Perception and the Physical World

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1002/0470013427.ch4
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2012). Der Schein des Realen.. Näher Dran? Zur Phänomenologie Des Wahrnehmens
Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychologie, weiße folter’ und die verantwortlichkeit von wissenschaftlern. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1026/0033-3042.60.4.229
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Wendt, G., Faul, F., & Mausfeld, R.. (2008). Highlight disparity contributes to the authenticity and strength of perceived glossiness. Journal of Vision

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1167/8.1.14
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2010). Psychologie, biologie, kognitive neurowissenschaften zur gegenwärtigen dominanz neuroreduktionistischer positionen zu ihren stillschweigenden grundannahmen. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1026/0033-3042/a000045
DOI URL
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Heyer, D., & Mausfeld, R.. (2002). Perception and the physical world: psychological and philosophical issues in perception. Perception
Narens, L., & Mausfeld, R.. (1992). On the Relationship of the Psychological and the Physical in Psychophysics. Psychological Review

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.99.3.467
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2012). “Colour” As Part of the Format of Different Perceptual Primitives: The Dual Coding of Colour. In Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198505006.003.0013
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2013). The Attribute of Realness and the Internal Organization of Perceptual Reality. In Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology: Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1002/9781118329016.ch3
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2001). What’s within? Can the internal structure of perception be derived from regularities of the external world?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X01530083
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R., & Andres, J.. (2002). Second-order statistics of colour codes modulate transformations that effectuate varying degrees of scene invariance and illumination invariance. Perception

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1068/p07sp
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Mausfeld, R.. (2006). Wahrnehmung: Geschichte und Ansätze. In Handbuch der Allgemeinen Psychologie – Kognition

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2141.2008.07177.x
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2010). Intrinsic multiperspectivity: On the architectural foundations of a distinctive mental capacity. In Cognition and Neuropsychology: International Perspectives on Psychological Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.4324/9780203845820
DOI URL
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Mausfeld, R.. (2013). The Biological Function of Sensory Systems. In Neurosciences – From Molecule to Behavior: a university textbook

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-10769-6_12
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Andres, J., & Mausfeld, R.. (2008). Structural description and qualitative content in perception theory. Consciousness and Cognition

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2006.11.005
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Mausfeld, R., Wendt, G., & Golz, J.. (2014). Lustrous material Appearances: Internal and external constraints on triggering conditions for binocular lustre. I-Perception

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1068/i0603
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Satyāgraha

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Satyāgraha (Sanskrit: सत्याग्रह) is a composite lexeme composed of the word satya (meaning “truth”) and agraha (“holding firmly to”). It also refers to a virtue in Indian philosophy, referring to being truthful and pure in thought, word and action. In Yoga philosophy, satya is one of five yamas (Sanskrit: यम).

Ahiṃsā (अहिंसा): Nonviolence
Satya (सत्य): Truthfulness
Asteya (अस्तेय): Not stealing
Brahmacharya (ब्रह्मचर्य): Chastity, marital fidelity, sexual restraint
Aparigraha (अपरिग्रहः): Non-avarice, non-possessiveness

 

“You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance.
Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

On boiling frogs & bold men

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The boiling frog is an analogy describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is thrown suddenly into boiling hot water, it will immediately jump out. However, if the frog is put in cold water which is then slowly and gradually brought to a boil, it will not perceive the danger, sit still, and will therefore be cooked to death. Applied to human cognition & behavior the analogy could be interpreted as follow: If the environment changes gradually in an incremental step-wise fashion, humans have great difficulty to recognize the change because each step in the evolution of the system (i.e., the change in the environment) is not drastic at all. However, over an elongated period of time the system changes significantly and the additive long-term effect of numerous small changes have extreme consequences. The question thus is: When does the system change from stable to chaotic, i.e., from “from lukewarm to boiling hot”. The demarcation criterion is not clear. In the cognitive sciences this is ambiguity is discussed under the header “vagueness of attributes”.1 In philosophy this is an ancient paradox known as Sôritês paradox (or the problem of the heap).2 The paradox is based on the seemingly simple question: When does a heap of sand become a heap? (When does the system “switch” from being life-supporting to deadly.) The Bald Man (phalakros) paradox is another allegory which illustrates the point:
A man with a full head of hair is not bald. The removal of a single hair will not turn him into a bold man. However, diachronically, continuous repeated removal of single hairs will necessarily result in baldness. However, it is unclear when the “critical boundary” has been transgressed. In the psychology of reasoning this is termed the “continuum fallacy”. The informal logical fallacy pertains the argument that two states (i.e., cold vs. hot) cannot be defined as distinct (and/or do not exist at all) because between them there exists a continuum of states (cf. fuzzy logic). The fundamental question whether any continua exist in the physical world is a deep question in physics (cf. atomism). Deterministic Newtonian physics stipulates that reality is continuous. Per contrast, contemporary quantum physics is based on the notion of discrete states (quanta) as the notion of continuity appears to be invalid at the smallest Planck scale of physical existence.

The Analects of Confucius

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 “Cultivated persons seek harmony but not sameness.”
~ Confucius  (Analects 13. 23).

Harmony (和)

Confucian value of harmony:

子曰：“君子和而不同，小人同而不和。”
See uwaterloo.ca/community-and-professional-education/blog/post/confucian-values-and-characters-series-harmony



Further References

Waley, A.. (2012). The analects of confucius. The Analects of Confucius

Plain numerical DOI: 10.4324/9780203715246
DOI URL
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Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, J.. (1999). The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. Classics of Ancient China

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.72.012329
DOI URL
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Tan, C.. (2015). Beyond Rote-Memorisation: Confucius’ Concept of Thinking. Educational Philosophy and Theory

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2013.879693
DOI URL
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Woods, P. R., & Lamond, D. A.. (2011). What Would Confucius Do? – Confucian Ethics and Self-Regulation in Management. Journal of Business Ethics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10551-011-0838-5
DOI URL
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Confucius, & Lau, D. C.. (1979). The analects (Lun yü). Penguin classics.
Chen, P., Tolmie, A. K., & Wang, H.. (2016). Growing the critical thinking of schoolchildren in Taiwan using the Analects of Confucius. International Journal of Educational Research

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.ijer.2017.02.002
DOI URL
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Brooks, E. B., & Brooks, A. T.. (1997). The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors. Translations from the Asian Classics
Li, C. C. N.-D. dur fil pau pau global china maig 07 encomanat F. abril 2008. (2007). An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy: From Ancient Philosophy to Chinese Buddhism – By JeeLoo Liu. Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Plain numerical DOI: doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2007.00432.x
DOI URL
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Sim, M.. (2013). CONFUCIAN VALUES AND HUMAN RIGHTS. The Review of Metaphysics
Kim, H. K.. (2003). Critical Thinking, Learning and Confucius: A Positive Assessment. Journal of Philosophy of Education

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/1467-9752.3701005
DOI URL
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Hasebe, Y.. (2003). Constitutional borrowing and political theory. International Journal of Constitutional Law

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1093/icon/1.2.224
DOI URL
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Cheang, A. W.. (2000). The master’s voice: On reading, translating and interpreting the analects of confucius. Review of Politics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/S0034670500041693
DOI URL
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Romar, E. J.. (2004). Managerial harmony: The Confucian ethics of Peter F. Drucker. In Journal of Business Ethics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1023/B:BUSI.0000033613.11761.7b
DOI URL
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The “Straw man fallacy”

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A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man.”


Further References

Eemeren, F. H. Van, Amsterdam, F. V., & Walton, D.. (1996). The straw man fallacy. Logic and Argumentation

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139600187
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Talisse, R., & Aikin, S. F.. (2006). Two forms of the Straw Man. Argumentation

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10503-006-9017-8
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Lewiński, M.. (2011). Towards a Critique-Friendly Approach to the Straw Man Fallacy Evaluation. Argumentation

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10503-011-9227-6
DOI URL
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Lewiński, M., & Oswald, S.. (2013). When and how do we deal with straw men? A normative and cognitive pragmatic account. Journal of Pragmatics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.05.001
DOI URL
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Ika, L. A.. (2018). Beneficial or Detrimental Ignorance: The Straw Man Fallacy of Flyvbjerg’s Test of Hirschman’s Hiding Hand. World Development

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.10.016
DOI URL
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Macagno, F., & Damele, G.. (2013). The dialogical force of implicit premises: Presumptions in enthymemes. Informal Logic

Plain numerical DOI: 10.22329/il.v33i3.3679
DOI URL
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Silvio Gesell and the monetary system

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Silvio Gesell (German: [ɡəˈzɛl]; 17 March 1862 – 11 March 1930) was a German merchant, theoretical economist, social activist, Georgist, anarchist, libertarian socialist,[1] and founder of Freiwirtschaft. In 1900 he founded the magazine Geld-und Bodenreform (Monetary and Land Reform), but it soon closed for financial reasons. During one of his stays in Argentina, where he lived in a vegetarian commune, Gesell started the magazine Der Physiokrat together with Georg Blumenthal. In 1914, it closed due to censorship.

The Bavarian Soviet Republic, in which he participated, had a violent end and Gesell was detained for several months on a charge of treason, but was acquitted by a Munich court after a speech he gave in his own defence.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Gesell


Further References

Preparata, G. G., & Elliott, J. E.. (2004). Free-economics: The vision of reformer Silvio Gesell. International Journal of Social Economics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1108/03068290410555408
DOI URL
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Onken, W.. (2000). The political economy of Silvio Gesell: A century of activism. American Journal of Economics and Sociology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/1536-7150.00046
DOI URL
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Dillard, D.. (1942). Silvio Gesell’s Monetary Theory of Social Reform. American Economic Review
Blanc, J.. (1998). Free money for social progress: Theory and practice of Gesell’s accelerated money. American Journal of Economics and Sociology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1998.tb03376.x
DOI URL
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Blanc, J.. (2002). Silvio Gesell socialiste proudhonien et reformateur monétaire. In Actes du colloque de la Société Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 1e décembre 2001, « Le crédit, quel intérêt ? »
Ilgmann, C.. (2015). Silvio Gesell: “A strange, unduly neglected” monetary theorist. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/01603477.2015.1099446
DOI URL
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Punceva, M., Rodero, I., Parashar, M., Rana, O. F., & Petri, I.. (2015). Incentivising resource sharing in social clouds. Concurrency Computation

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1002/cpe.3009
DOI URL
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Julius Cæsar’s “Panem et circenses”

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“Bread and circuses” (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a figure of speech, specifically referring to a superficial means of appeasement. As a metonymic, the phrase is attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD — and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.

In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace[1] — by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).

Juvenal, who originated the phrase, used it to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.[2][3][4] The phrase implies a population’s erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.[5]

This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (circa A.D. 100). In context, the Latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining interest of a Roman populace which no longer cares for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of contemporary Romans, using a range of different themes including lust for power and desire for old age to illustrate his argument.[6] Roman politicians passed laws in 140 B.C. to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment, “bread and circuses”, became the most effective way to rise to power.

Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 B.C.; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

See also “qua exstant” 1678


Further References

Sanders, G.. (2012). Panem et circenses: Worship and the spectacle. Culture and Religion

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2012.658419
DOI URL
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Bueno Bravo, I.. (2009). El sacrificio gladiatorio y su vinculación con la guerra en la sociedad mexicana. Gladius

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3989/gladius.2009.219
DOI URL
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Ripoll López, G.. (1990). Panem et circenses. El circo y las carreras de caballos. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie I, Prehistoria
Logothetis, G., Matsaridis, A., & Kaimakakis, V.. (2012). The panem et circenses policy of the Regime of the Colonels in Greek sport, 1967-1974. Studies in Physical Culture & Tourism