Trouble with the Emperor

So while I think Juvenal has some contempt for the People who have given up their oversight of the state and ceased to be rightly concerned over public affairs, I don’t think we get the sense – as is often how the phrase is used today – of the people being bribed to give up their votes. Indeed, that’s the thing: the people stopped being able to sell their votes and so could only wish for bread and circuses (rather than buy them with their votes). Instead, the People weren’t bribed from their freedoms but broken and subjected to the lash by men like Crassus and Pompey and this one fellow we’re not going to name because Juvenal is a giant hypocrite who doesn’t want to get in trouble with the emperor either. They were thus reduced by violence to merely wishing for panem et circenses (which Juvenal, in appropriately Roman fashion, views as a cowardly abdication of duty).

=> https://acoup.blog/2024/12/20/collections-on-bread-and-circuses/

Who doesn't like a little lèse majesté?

Families when a child is born

Hope it will turn out intelligent.

人皆養子望聰明， I, through intelligence

我被聰明誤一生； Having wrecked my whole life,

惟願孩子愚且魯， Only hope that the baby will prove

無災無難到公卿。 Ignorant and stupid.

Then he'll be happy all his days

And grow into a cabinet minister.

苏轼 Su Shi