Politics & the Piazza
The Piazza as a political forum, from the empires to the contemporary democracies... passing through dictatorships.
The late British classicist Henry Kitto held that the ancients had little formal democracy, but that their meeting to argue out their problems at the stoa in Athens or a forum in Rome was essentially democratic, whereas the modern British, with their formal democracy, tend to speak only across backyard picket fences. For Professor Kitto, yammering away, arguing, quarreling, and joking in a piazza constitute a real and valuable road to democracy.
Judith Harris is a Rome-based American writer and journalist
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