Among the essential requirements—along with military expertise and financial resources—for a successful political career in Republican Rome, mastery of oratory —the art of public speaking —stood out. The latter was closely linked to rhetoric, a discipline aimed at persuading the masses.

Every aspiring Roman statesman was required to receive specific training in these areas and—where financially possible—could travel to Greece to seek out the most authoritative teachers in the field (and, of course, to master Greek, the Frankish language of the ancient Mediterranean). Among the most renowned teachers was Apollonius Molon, teacher of Cicero and Caesar. It is no coincidence that oratory and rhetoric originated in the Hellenic world, particularly in Athens, as Cicero reports in Brutus, a dialogue of Platonic inspiration in which the author traces the history of eloquence from its beginnings to himself (considering himself to be its pinnacle), composed during Caesar's dictatorship.

The testing ground for a novice politician was legal practice, that is, assuming the role of prosecutor or defender in important judicial proceedings, with the aim of gaining visibility and prestige: trials were public, and the orator's name was on everyone's lips. Thus, Cicero began his career thanks to the fame he gained from the accusation against pro-praetor Gaius Verres, accused of extortion (repetundis). It should be noted, however, that if the accused were a client of an influential figure, this could have posed a serious threat to the prosecutor; for this reason, the choice of assignments had to be carefully considered.

While these practices retained central importance during the Republican era—reaching their peak during the civil wars, not coincidentally the period in which the figure of the orator of Arpinum emerged—this centrality diminished during the Imperial era. Power, now centralised in the figure of the emperor, precluded direct political confrontation, relegating oratory and rhetoric to tools for managing private disputes or simple displays of individual prestige. It is significant, in this regard, that Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, while intended as a manual for the training of orators, was above all a pedagogical treatise written for the education of Domitian's grandchildren.