The Guardian presents an analy­sis of Obama’s cam­paign trail speeches, not­ing par­tic­u­larly how they recall ancient Greek imagery and skills from great Roman orators.

Dur­ing the Roman repub­lic (and in ancient Athens) pol­i­tics was ora­tory. In Athens, ques­tions such as whether or not to declare war on an enemy state were decided by the entire elec­torate (or how­ever many both­ered to turn up) in open debate. Ora­tory was the supreme polit­i­cal skill, on whose mas­tery power depended. Unsur­pris­ingly, then, ora­tory was highly organ­ised and rig­or­ously analysed. The Greeks and Romans, in short, knew all the rhetor­i­cal tricks, and they put a name to most of them.

It turns out that Obama knows them, too.