Shape

Switch to local website

Would you like to stay on this page or do you want to switch to your local website?

Stay Switch
  • Location
  • Tickets
  • Contact
  • EN
    • DE
Search
  • Exhibition
  • Visit
    • Individual Visitors
    • Tour Groups
    • Schools
  • Prices
  • Architecture
  • News
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Search
You are looking for...?
Visitor information

Hunger
and Power

Since the time when Rome was governed by “bread and circuses”, bread has been a political weapon. Whoever distributed it had power and influence. If it was rationed, the days of those in power were numbered.

Sufficient bread ensures stability; with too little, a society breaks out into chaos. It is not only since the Romans succeeded in whitewashing their crises with panem et circenses that bread has been a political weapon, a sedative for the people, and a trigger for revolutions.

Queen Marie Antoinette is said to have started the French Revolution by saying that, if they lacked bread, her subjects should eat cake. Although there is no official record of her expressing these words, the phrase could not be a better indication of how bread tied in with politics. Whoever ate the hard bread of the people won their trust. Those who thought it beneath them ignited anger from below.

Even more than that, it was the access to bread, in terms of food, that was used as an instrument of power. Bread in abundance assured goodwill, as well as power and influence to those who could procure and distribute it. On the other hand, if bread had to be rationed, a social fuse was lit, and the days of those in power were numbered. In 1917, the Bolsheviks in Russia demanded “peace, land and bread”, whilst chants for “work and bread” could be heard in the seething Germany of the 1920s.

Bread has thus been at the origin of many historically momentous upheavals: in short supply, as a slogan, as a demand, and as a symbol. Sadly, these revolutions have often given rise to greater scarcity, forcing the struggle for bread and power to begin anew.

TICKETS

Book PANEUM tickets and tours online in just a few clicks

BOOK TICKETS

Opening times

Tue-Sat 10h00-16h00
(Last entry 15h00)

Closed on Sundays, Mondays and public holidays.

Please register in advance!

ADDRESS

PANEUM – Wunderkammer des Brotes
Kornspitzstrasse 1
A-4481 Asten
T +43 7224 8821 400

YOUR WAY TO THE PANEUM

FOLLOW US

For more insights into the Wunderkammer des Brotes, follow the PANEUM social media channels

  • Youtube
  • Facebook
© 2023 PANEUM — Wunderkammer des Brotes
Part of backaldrin
  • Data Protection and Cookies
  • Imprint

We are using cookies to make it easier for you to use the website. If you continue without changing your setting, you consent to use all cookies on this website. You can change your cookie settings at any time.