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The oldest witnesses for Cicero's Topica are two ninth-century manuscripts belonging to Leiden University Library (Codd. Voss. Lat. F84 and F86, dubbed A and B). The two mss. have been extensively studied in their function as main sources of Cicero's Leg. by P.L. Schmidt. In the best edition of the Topica by G. Di Maria, however, Schmidt's work is ignored, and the purpose of this article is to bring Schmidt's results to bear on what Di Maria has established, and to correct both scholars on some points. Schmidt's view is confirmed that the oldest correction layers in A and B do not reflect readings of a third manuscript and that B was completed in the ninth century by insertion of four additional folia after these correction layers had been produced. Then new information is added on the details of the completion of the text of the Topica in B.

Around 87b.c.during the turmoil of the first Mithridatic war, Philo of Larissa, head of the so-called Fourth Academy, fled from Athens to Rome. There he gave lectures on philosophical topics and taught rhetoric. His classes were attended by a young man called Cicero, who was inspired by him to include in a work on rhetorical theory, somewhat inappropriately, a fervent confession of scepticism to which he stuck for the rest of his life. Later Cicero claimed to be—as an orator—not a product of the workshops of the teachers of rhetoric, but of the spacious walks of the Academy. And he developed the ideal of the philosopher-orator. Scholars disagree whether the idea to bring philosophy and rhetoric together is Cicero's own invention or an adaptation from someone else, for instance Philo.