Thus was I privileged, from the very start, to see the tricks of oratory passed from one master to another. “There should be no effeminate bending of the neck, no twiddling of the fingers. Don’t move your shoulders. If you must use your fingers for a gesture, try bending the middle finger against the thumb and extending the other three-that’s it, that’s good. The eyes of course are always turned in the direction of the gesture, except when we have to reject: ‘O gods, avert such plague!’ or ‘I do not think that I deserve such honor.’”

Nothing was allowed to be written down, for no orator worthy of the name would dream of reading out a text or consulting a sheaf of notes. Molon favored the standard method of memorizing a speech: that of an imaginary journey around the speaker’s house. “Place the first point you want to make in the entrance hall, and picture it lying there, then the second in the atrium, and so on, walking around the house in the way you would naturally tour it, assigning a section of your speech not just to each room but to every alcove and statue. Make sure each site is well lit, clearly defined, and distinctive. Otherwise you’ll go groping around like a drunk trying to find his bed after a party.”

Cicero was not the only pupil at Molon’s academy that spring and summer. In time we were joined by Cicero’s younger brother, Quintus, and his cousin, Lucius, and also by two friends of his: Servius, a fussy lawyer who wished to become a judge, and Atticus-the dapper, charming Atticus-who had no interest in oratory, for he lived in Athens, and certainly had no intention of making a career in politics, but who loved spending time with Cicero. All marveled at the change which had been wrought in his health and appearance, and on their final evening together-for now it was autumn, and the time had come to return to Rome -they gathered to hear the effects which Molon had produced on his oratory.