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Updated: June 20, 2025
They are full of banter of a rather forced and dull kind; and Cicero was evidently annoyed to find that his scheme for advancing Trebatius in Cæsar's province had not been very successful. The friendship, however, survived the civil war, and we find Cicero in B.C. 44 dedicating his Topica to Trebatius.
Then he writes a letter to Trebatius, who had there a charming villa, bought no doubt with Gallic spoils. He is reminded of his promise, and going on to Rhegium writes his Topica, which he sends to Trebatius from that place.
The Topica, written in 44 B.C., contains an account of the invention of arguments, and belongs partly to logic, partly to rhetoric. The last work of this class is the De Optimo Genere Oratorum, which stands as a preface to the crown speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines, which Cicero had translated.
"I am of opinion, says he, that in order to acquire the knowledge of Law, before you touch upon law tracts you should read with attention Aristotle's second and fifth book of Ethics, to Nicomachus, or the excellent paraphrase of them published by Heinsius; then Aristotle's Rhetoric, with the learned commentary on it; afterwards Cicero's Offices, the Paradoxes, De Finibus, Of Laws, the Topica, and De Inventiene.
The series of his rhetorical works has been preserved nearly complete, and consists of the De Inventione, De Oratore, Brutus sive de claris Oratoribus, Orator sive de optimo genere Dicendi, De partitione Oratoriâ, Topica, and de optimo genere Oratorum.
At last we come to the Topica; the last instructions which Cicero gives on the subject of oratory. The Romans seem to have esteemed much the lessons which are here conveyed, but for us it has but little attraction. He himself declares it to have been a translation from Aristotle, but declares also that the translation has been made from memory.
Two years afterward, about the time that Milo was killing Clodius, he wrote his treatise in three books, De Legibus. It is, we are told, a copy from Plato. As is the Topica a copy from Aristotle, written on board ship from memory, so may this be called a copy. The idea was given to him, and many of the thoughts which he has worked up in his own manner.
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