Rhetorum praeceptor

“I shall first tell you what equipment you must yourself bring with you from home for the journey, and how you must provision yourself so that you can finish it soonest. Then giving you my personal instruction along the road, partly by example set for you while you proceed, and partly by precept, before sunset I shall make you a public speaker, superior to them all, just like myself—indubitably

first, midmost and last[*](I.e, the others are not in it with him. Compare Demosthenes 25, 8: “all such beasts, of whom he is midmost and last and first.” ) of all who undertake to make speeches.

“Bring with you, then, as the principal thing, ignorance; secondly, recklessness, and thereto effrontery and shamelessness. Modesty, respectability, selfrestraint, and blushes may be left at home, for they are useless and somewhat of a hindrance to the matter in hand. But you need also a very loud voice, a shameless singing delivery, and a gait like mine. They are essential indeed, and sometimes sufficient in themselves.[*](Compare the conversation between Demosthenes and the sausage-seller in Aristophanes, Knights, 150-235. ) Let your clothing be gaily-coloured, or else white, a fabric of Tarentine manufacture, so that your body will show through ; and wear either high Attic sandals of the kind that women wear, with many slits, or else Sicyonian boots, trimmed with strips of white felt. Have also many attendants, and always a book in hand.

“That is what you must contribute yourself. The rest you may now see and hear by the way, as you go forward. And next I shall tell you the rules that you must follow in order that Rhetoric may recognize and welcome you, and not turn you her back and bid you go to, as if you were an outsider prying into her privacies. First of all, you must pay especial attention to outward appearance, and to the graceful set of your cloak. Then cull from some source or other fifteen, or anyhow not more than twenty, Attic words, drill yourself carefully in them, and have them ready at the tip of your tongue

—‘sundry,’ ‘eftsoons,’ ‘prithee,’ ‘in some wise,’ ‘fair sir, and the like.[*](Two of the terms require a word of comment: «dra means “and then,” not “‘eftsoons,” and the peculiarly Attic feature was the crasis (xal elra being run together) ; nav was used to introduce a question, like nwm in Latin, and was in Lucian’s day obsolete. ) Whenever you speak, sprinkle in some of them as a relish. Never mind if the rest is inconsistent with them, unrelated, and discordant. Only let your purple stripe be handsome and bright, even if your cloak is but a blanket of the thickest sort.