[Footnote 32: This is certain, from the remarks addressed by Cicero to Trebatius at the beginning of the Ciceronian Topica, that in his time Aristotle was little known and little studied at Rome, even by philosophical students. Trebatius knew nothing of the Topica, until he saw the work by chance in Cicero's library, and asked information about the contents. The reply of Cicero illustrates the little notice taken of Aristotle by Roman readers. "Cum autem ego te, non tam vitandi laboris mei causâ, quam quia tua id interesse arbitrarer, vel ut eos per te ipse legeres, vel ut totam rationem a doctissimo quodam rhetore acciperes, hortatus essem, utrumque ut ex te audiebam, es expertus. Sed a libris te obscuritas rejecit: rhetor autem ille magnus, ut opinor, _Aristotelia se ignorare_ respondit. Quod quidem minime sum admiratus, eum philosophum rhetori non esse cognitum, _qui ab ipsis philosophis, præter admodum paucos, ignoraretur._" Compare also Cicero, Academ. Post. i. 3, 10.] [Footnote 33: Even the philosophical commentators on Aristotle, such as David the Armenian, seem to have known the lost work of Aristotle called [Greek: Politei=ai] (the history of the constitutions of 250 Hellenic cities), better than the theoretical work which we possess, called the Politica; though they doubtless knew both. (See Scholia ad Categorias, Brandis, p. 16, b. 20; p. 24, a. 25; p. 25, b. 5.)--We read in Schneider's Preface to the Aristotelian Politica (p. x.): "Altum et mirabile silentium est apud antiquitatem Græcam et Romanam de novâ Aristotelis Republicâ, cum omnes ferè scriptores Græci et Romani, mentione Reipublicæ Platonicæ pleni, vel laudibus vel vituperiis ejus abundant."--There is no clear reference to the Aristotelian Politica earlier than Alexander of Aphrodisias. Both Hildenbrand (Geschichte der Staats- und Rechts-Philosophen, t. i. pp. 358-361), and Oncken (Staatslehre des Aristot. pp. 65-66), think that the Aristotelian Politica was not published until after the purchase of the library by Apellikon.]