Bread and games...and chili and beer

February 3rd, 2007 - What a great event is the superbowl. While considering the never-ending pregame, the food, the party, the booze, the friends, the commercials, the half-time show, the cheerleaders and the shear force of mass gathering around a single event, one almost forgets about the football. Although most of the half-time shows have been mediocre since the early nineties, the other ''accessories'' that garnish the superbowl Sunday every year have an interesting sociological aspect. For a whole day, we will forget wars, famines, diseases, bad jobs, bad relationships and an inevitable hangover (all of this, of course, given enough booze and excitement) to gather around the stadium or boob tube and watch a little football.

I am not going to defend the core game of the extravaganza because, for the past few decades, the game has usually been quite long and without any tumultuous variations in score. Different teams make it every year and therefore real dynasty can be rooted for anymore (not since the Cowboys and Dolphins).

This power to congregate, assemble and reconciliate, if only for a day, could possible take strong root in the Roman republic. Senates, Consuls and Dictators of the Palatine hill would announce ''bread and games'' for a set number of days. These were shamelessly made to help the population forget about a stagnating civil war, a costly victory against Samnites, Etruscans, Carthaginians or Hannibal himself, a brewing situation of social inequality and unrest and/or a general climate of fear caused by the ever-impending doom that the Gauls could bring from the Alps. The priority was shifted towards having a good time in a world where work and war was the daily meal. Shameless as it might have been, the break (and bread) was welcomed. The spectacle escalated to ridiculous heights with the filling of the coliseum with water for a staged naval battle and the later participation and wounding of an Emperor in a gladiator fight (Imagine the scope of pottery, wheat and slave commercials).

Today's world proposes millions more of life's intricacies and preoccupations as well as millions of nuances for these. To be able to stop and laugh at a dissonant combo of raggedy Steve Tyler from Aerosmith, incoherent Axel Rose from Gun's and Roses and a stumbling Keith Richards from the Rolling stones at a halftime show is the reason why living in the twentieth century is so great. A Christian/lion fest would also be great but we will make due with the football.

(Pictured: Roman gladiators)

End.