In" Women Seen and Heard, experienced public speakers share their wisdom on how to get ready for and deliver dynamic presentations, whether to co-workers or managers, small groups and formal audiences or at community and political events. Until recently, women were in the background supporting men in leadership positions; but now, they are a powerful force for leading change. Given the complexity of issues facing our society, the public needs to hear from women of diverse backgrounds in the debates and discussions that will shape our future. When it comes to leadership opportunities, today's women leaders want more than a level playing field - they want the advantage of having exceptional speaking skills.

Quintilian, born in Spain about 35 CE, became a widely known and highly successful teacher of rhetoric in Rome. "The Orator's Education" ("Institutio Oratoria"), a comprehensive training program in twelve books, draws on his own rich experience. It is a work of enduring importance, not only for its insights on oratory, but for the picture it paints of education and social attitudes in the Roman world.

Quintilian offers both general and specific advice. He gives guidelines for proper schooling (beginning with the young boy); analyzes the structure of speeches; recommends devices that will engage listeners and appeal to their emotions; reviews a wide range of Greek and Latin authors of use to the orator; and counsels on memory, delivery, and gestures.

Donald Russell's new five-volume Loeb Classical Library edition of "The Orator's Education," which replaces an eighty-year-old translation by H. E. Butler, provides a text and facing translation fully up to date in light of current scholarship and well tuned to today's taste. Russell also provides unusually rich explanatory notes, which enable full appreciation of this central work in the history of rhetoric.