I. We had begun to write, O Caius Trebatius, on subjects more important and more worthy of these books, of which we have published a sufficient number in a short time, when your request recalled me from my course.  For when you were with me in my Tusculan villa, and when each of us was separately in the library opening such books as were suited to our respective tastes and studies, you fell on a treatise of Aristotle’s called the Topics; which he has explained in many books; and, excited by the title, you immediately asked me to explain to you the doctrines laid down in those books.  And when I had explained them to you, and told you that the system for the discovery of arguments was contained in them, in order that we might arrive, without making any mistake, at the system on which they rested by the way discovered by Aristotle, you urged me, modestly indeed, as you do everything, but still in a way which let me plainly see your eagerness to be gratified, to make you master of the whole of Aristotle’s method.  And when I exhorted you, (not so much for the sake of saving myself trouble, as because I really thought it advantageous for you yourself,) either to read them yourself, or to get the whole system explained to you by some learned rhetorician, you told me that you had already tried both methods.  But the obscurity of the subject deterred you from the books; and that illustrious rhetorician to whom you had applied answered you, I suppose, that he knew nothing of these rules of Aristotle.  And this I was not so much surprised at, namely, that that philosopher was not known to the rhetorician, inasmuch as he is not much known even to philosophers, except to a very few.

And such ignorance is the less excusable in them, because they not only ought to have been allured by those things which he has discovered and explained, but also by the incredible richness and sweetness of his eloquence.  I could not therefore remain any longer in your debt, since you often made me this request, and yet appeared to fear being troublesome to me, (for I could easily see that,) lest I should appear unjust to him who is the very interpreter of the law.  In truth, as you had often written many things for me and mine, I was afraid that if I delayed obliging you in this, it would appear very ungrateful or very arrogant conduct on my part.  But while we were together, you yourself are the best witness of how I was occupied; but after I left you, on my way into Greece, when neither the republic nor any friends were occupying my attention, and when I could not honourably remain amid the armies, (not even if I could have done so safely,) as soon as I came to Velia and beheld your house and your family, I was reminded of this debt; and would no longer be wanting to your silent request.  Therefore, as I had no books with me, I have written these pages on my voyage, from memory; and I have sent them to you while on my journey, in order that by my diligence in obeying your commands, I might rouse you to a recollection of my affairs, although you do not require a reminder.  But, however, it is time to come to the object which we have undertaken.