In the great days of the war between Athens and Sparta purposely precipitated by the Athenians who like all the Greeks were under the military thumb of the Spartans, it was generally agreed (and still is by scholars of the time) that the Athenians had the upper hand when it came to oratory. In fact the history we have of the time, by Thucydides, recreates many of the speeches and we find there all the rules of oratory in the use of the language, the pace and the tugging at the heart strings.
But there came along a general in Sparta called Brasidas, a full thirty years before the end of the wars that lasted almost a century and resulted in a Spartan victory which was as Pyrrhic as they come because Greece had bled too much in the fighting. Brasidas was a good speaker, a brilliant general and he almost won. It all fell to pieces because he died in the last battle. But he took the war to Athenian shipyards which was the true heart of their Empire, and he liberated people and he moved swiftly.
To see how truly great he was, you only have to know that in the cities he liberated they instituted a games in his honour. Seventy years after his death a young man learned about Brasidas and why the games were held. He learned about his daring, his speed, his strategy. That young man we know as Alexander The Great.
Every life you see, if built upon what has gone before.