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> "Bread" might be the minimum to maintain a content populace, 

Apart from Persia, China and a few other small kingdoms, most places on planet earth at that time were severely underdeveloped. Literal free food would be seen as a luxury to have at that time. 

The bread was called frumentatio and was very popular during its time. Picrel is how it looked like


> it's "circuses" where you step into keeping the population distracted.

That really didn't help so much. Romans would always be revolting or have it's soldiers do mutinies against the state/senators/dictators/governors/etc