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Let’s play a game: I will describe a location, and you decide whether it’s The Roman Empire around the time Jesus lived or Panem, the dystopian nation where The Hunger Games trilogy takes place.
Question 1: This location has a class of people whose wealth desensitizes it to the needs of the less fortunate. Panem, The Roman Empire, or both?
Answer: Both.
Question 2: This locale has a tyrannical leader intent on maintaining power and quelling symbols of hope that might incite revolt. Panem, The Roman Empire, or both?
Answer: Both.
Question 3: This location has a central source of power and wealth with outlying regions that suffer to support it. Panem, The Roman Empire, or both?
Answer (you probably guessed it already): Both.
I’m not the first commentator to note the similarities between the two societies. Others have noted that the word “panem,” for instance, is said to come from the Latin words panem et circenses, or “bread and circuses.”
The term refers, fittingly enough, to distractions aimed at appeasing the public in ancient Rome, just as the Hunger Games were a distraction for the Capitol’s residents but simultaneously a diabolical show of government power for the districts.
Yet in addition to resembling ancient Rome broadly, Panem also specifically resembles the ancient Roman Empire around the time that Jesus lived. Continue reading.
Danielle Tumminio is an Episcopal priest, life coach, and writer, living in the United States.
Source: Huffington Post
Image: Alonso Nichols
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