In most films and TV shows, huge armies are given a speech by a single person before a large battle, with the intention of inspiring or otherwise preparing their men. This is fictional, for obvious reasons, but it got me curious about whether this was an actual thing that happened? It seems that if it did happen there would need to be people repeating the speech throughout the ranks - ten thousand men arranged in battle formation will struggle to hear anything beyond a few feet or so (I think) - so would these have been commanders spread out or would there be a dedicated 'messenger' every few yards or so? Would they all know the speech and say it together, or would they come up with their own 'this is basically what he's saying' version? Is there any historical evidence that this would have had a positive effect on the army? Apologies if this is too unfocused, I can start a new post for some of the other questions in this post if needed.