Book I (of four) deals broadly with the types of suits or causes (epideictic, deliberative, and judicial), and the parts of discourse (introduction, statement of fact, division, proof, and refutation. More narrowly, it focuses on the tasks of the public speaker, the speaker's competence (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery), the ways of acquiring competency-as they apply to three types of issue: conjectural, legal, and juridical. Contrary to the myth that the Ad Herennium is just a book on rhetoric and language, it is a book on the art of public speaking. It is -really- a practical manual for administrators, managers, executives, paralegals, teachers, professors, judges, attorneys in general, litigators in particular-anyone who wishes to write or give a speech. Though humble in approach, the book delivers greatness.