We have already seen how public speaking was central, during the Republican period, to the operation of the Roman state; and how, despite radical political change between Republic and Empire, oratory retained its position as a key skill for the politically active elite. The importance of oratory made it, in turn, both the vehicle of and the focus for sustained critiques of the behaviour and values of Rome in general and the elite in particular. In this chapter I turn to the figure of the orator and consider how the expectations concerning his behaviour are set up. Technical works on rhetoric, anecdotes about individual orators and surviving oratorical texts can supplement surviving texts of speeches in the task of establishing what the Romans thought their speakers should do and be and how they criticised those who failed to meet these criteria.