I've always wondered if in movies like, Gladiator or Alexander, the great military leaders gave speeches before battle. And if so, were only a few people able to hear them?
I just want to add to the threads to which /u/Searocksandtrees mentioned, because they don't really address your second question--how did these speeches get passed around? /u/Celebreth mentions the suggestion that heralds and other soldiers passed around a general's speeches. That's really conjecture, although it's based at least in part on the fact that the few speeches that we have that could be considered really close to genuine have these very odd breaks between thoughts. However, in antiquity the only method of spreading speeches for which we have certain evidence is that a general would walk down the line and give his speech. The evidence for this comes from Thucydides, who notes that the Athenians at Delium were taken by surprise because the Boeotians attacked while Hippocrates was still part-way down the battle line delivering his speech. However, we don't know how that speech was transmitted. Either Hippocrates delivered the whole speech in one go, walking down the line in one continuous go, or he stopped at regular intervals and delivered his entire speech to one section of the line before moving on and starting over with the next section. The first seems militarily more sound, and faster, but it also means that soldiers are only hearing bits and pieces of the speech, totally out of context. The second makes more oratorical sense, but it's a waste of time--which doesn't necessarily make it suspect, since the Athenians took too long to draw up
hi! there's lots of room for more info on this, but fyi, you may be interested in a couple of sections from the FAQ
In the movie Patton, with George C. Scott, he makes a great speech at the start of the movie. I always wondered if Patton really gave that speech?