Read the introduction and the excerpt from the speech of the Roman orator Hortensia. 

The second triumvirate issued an edict stating that the fourteen hundred richest women in Rome should contribute to military expenses. The matrons tried to mediate with the wives of the triumvirs, but, failing to do so, they went to the Forum and Hortensia, representing all of them, gave a famous speech that obtained favorable results. This speech is collected by the historian Appian. 
 
... Why should we, who have no share in magistracies, honors, generalships, nor at all in the government of public affairs, pay tribute, for which reasons you engage in personal struggles that lead to such great calamities? Why do you say we are at war? And when were there no wars? When have women contributed tributes? Their very condition exempts them from it in all humanity....  

Our own translation from Antonio Sancho Royo (1985).
 
Hortensia was a contemporary of Cicero, the most important orator that Rome had. She was the daughter of Hortensius, an orator who, before Cicero appeared, was considered to be the best.  

According to Cicero, these are the steps that must be taken to make the speech: 

1.-Inventio: searching for arguments. 

2.-Dispositio: proper distribution of those arguments, chained together.

3.-Elocutio: art of decorating ideas by giving them the precise syntax. 

4.-Memoria: remembering each piece of information in its proper place. 

5.-Actio: practicing everything related to the moment of delivery of the speech: gestures, voice, emphasis, etc.

As for the speech itself, it should consist of four parts: 

1.-Introduction (exordium); 2.-Exposition (narratio); 3.-Argumentation (argumentatio) with a positve facet (probatio) and a negative one, in which real or possible objections are rejected, (refutatio); 4.-Conclusion (perotatio). 

Answer the questions: 
 
1.- Following Cicero's advice, make a short speech defending any current injustice.  

2.- What is public speaking for? 

3.- Does oratory exist today? 

4.- Valerius Maximus, a contemporary writer of Hortensia, points out that the speaker followed her father's style so closely that it seemed to revive him in her speech:

"Quintus Hortensius then revived in his female offspring and inspired the words of his daughter; if his male offspring had wanted to imitate his strength, the great heritage of Hortensius's eloquence would not have been cut short by this single speech by a woman.” 

The qualities of the parents are usually imitated and learned by their sons and daughters in an almost natural way. Do you know of other cases in which these family qualities have been censored on the basis of gender?