Bret Devereaux

But take Troy (2004), "Let no man forget how menacing we are" - how well is that going to work after your 'menacing' comrade takes an arrow to the face right next to you? Pretty sure everyone has had a parent tell them 'the animal is more scared of you than you are of it.'

I don't recall that ever making me feel better. And Gladiator (2000) "Think where you'll be in a week, unless you're dead, if then just lulz" - hardly encouraging?

And those are some of the better ones. So many of these damn movie battle speeches are basically football pep talks, "I'm with you, you got this, winning is fun, go get 'em!"

I mean, have you read the ancient speeches that inspire these? Lendon (2017) memorably describes most literary examples as "cold, unbuttered toast."

I'm not sure that's fair to the genre (Lendon is speaking only of Appian there, as I recall?). Lendon concedes the genre is fundamentally tethered to actual delivery, even if the speeches themselves are inventions....

No, he's speaking generally, though he seems to draw mostly on writings from the Roman era. He also refers to many of these speeches as "painfully similar" and stresses the extreme limitations of the genre.

"Compare the speeches Lucan writes...to the cold, unbuttered toast that Appian serves up for the same speeches" (151). The quip looks to be for Appian alone, even if it fits into a general discussion of flatness in the speeches.

But I think Lendon is on to something when he notes that the flatness of the speeches itself serves a narrative purpose. I'd argue it also probably serves a practical one too, which is part of what Plutrach is hinting at when he disparages overly florid speeches in the Moralia.