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Book 12 - Chapter 4
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The mind of an orator must be stored with examples and precedents.
1. Above all things, an orator should be furnished with an ample store of examples, both ancient as well as modern, since he should not only be acquainted with matters which are recorded in history, or transmitted from hand to hand, as it were, by tradition or are of daily occurrence, but should not even be neglectful of the fictions of the more eminent poets. For those of the former kind have the authority of testimonies or even of precedents, and the latter sort are either supported by the sanction of antiquity or are supposed to have been invented by great men to serve as precepts. 2. Let the orator, therefore, know as many as possible of every kind, for hence it is that greater authority is attributed to old men, as they are thought to have known and seen more than others, a fact to which Homer frequently attests. But we must not wait till the last stage of life to acquire authority, for study affords us such advantage that, as far as knowledge of events is concerned, we seem even to have lived in past ages.
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