At the age of eighteen Demosthenes, who had been brought up by his mother, laid claim to his father’s estate. The guardians by various devices attempted to frustrate him, and three years were spent in attempts at compromise and examinations before the arbitrators. During this time Demosthenes was studying rhetoric and judicial procedure under Isaeus, to whose methods his early speeches are so deeply indebted that a contemporary remarked ‘he had swallowed Isaeus whole.’[300] At last, when he was twenty-one years old, he succeeded in bringing his wrongs before a court; thanks to the training of Isaeus he was able to plead his own case, and he won it. The ingenuity of his adversaries enabled them to involve him in further legal proceedings which lasted perhaps two years more. In the end he was victorious, but by the time he recovered his patrimony there was very little of it left. Being forced to find a means of living he adopted the profession of a speech-writer, which he followed through the greater part of his life.[301] He made speeches for others to use, as his father had made swords, and he was as good a craftsman as his father. He succeeded by this new trade in repairing his damaged fortunes. In addition to forging such weapons for the use of others, he instructed pupils in the art of rhetoric. This practice he seems to have abandoned soon after the year 345 B.C., when public affairs began to have the chief claim on his energies.[302] From that time forward he wielded with distinction a sword of his own manufacture. It is said that as a youth barely of age he made an attempt to speak in the ecclesia, and failed. His voice was too weak, his delivery imperfect, and his style unsuitable. The failure only inspired him to practise that he might overcome his natural defects. We are familiar with the legends of his declaiming with pebbles in his mouth and reciting speeches when running up hill, of his studies in a cave by the sea-shore, where he tried to make his voice heard above the thunder of the waves.