He was twenty-eight when he started on this tour. It has been suggested that he did so in fear of the resentment of Sulla, with whose favorites and with whose practices he had dealt very plainly. There is no reason for alleging this, except that Sulla was powerful, that Sulla was blood-thirsty, and that Sulla must have been offended. This kind of argument is often used. It is supposed to be natural, or at least probable, that in a certain position a man should have been a coward or a knave, ungrateful or cruel; and in the presumption thus raised the accusation is brought against him. "Fearing Sulla's resentment," Plutarch says, "he travelled into Greece, and gave out that the recovery of his health was the motive." There is no evidence that such was his reason for travelling; and, as Middleton says in his behalf, it is certain that he "continued for a year after this in Rome without any apprehension of danger." It is best to take a man's own account of his own doings and their causes, unless there be ground for doubting the statement made. It is thus that Cicero himself speaks of his journey: "Now," he says, still in his Brutus[47], "as you wish to know what I am--not simply what mark I may have on my body from my birth, or with what surroundings of childhood I was brought up--I will include some details which might perhaps seem hardly necessary. At this time I was thin and weak, my neck being long and narrow--a habit and form of body which is supposed to be adverse to long life; and those who loved me thought the more of this, because I had taken to speaking without relaxation, without recreation with all the powers of my voice, and with much muscular action. When my friends and the doctors desired me to give up speaking, I resolved that, rather than abandon my career as an orator, I would face any danger. But when it occurred to me that by lowering my voice, by changing my method of speaking, I might avoid the danger, and at the same time learn to speak with more elegance, I accepted that as a reason for going into Asia, so that I might study how to change my mode of elocution. Thus, when I had been two years at work upon causes, and when my name was already well known in the Forum, I took my departure, and left Rome."