“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.