The skill of Isaeus in dealing with complicated cases is well shown by a consideration of the arguments of any of the remaining speeches; for instance, Oration v. (_On the Estate of Dicaeogenes_) is concerned with the claims of a certain man’s nephew as against his cousin, who inherited a third portion under a will subsequently proved to be false, and eventually succeeded to the whole under a second will which the claimants proved false. Two wills and the results of two previous trials have to be kept in mind, as well as the rather complicated relationship of the parties; but Isaeus makes the case substantially clear. Again, in Oration xi. (_On the Estate of Hagnias_) twenty-three members of the family are referred to by name, and it is necessary to trace the family’s ramifications through a large number of second cousins whose nearness of consanguinity is in some cases affected by the intermarriage of first cousins. The facts of the case are not easy to follow even on paper, and it appears that the judges on this occasion were puzzled into giving a wrong verdict. The orator’s methods may, however, be studied more conveniently in a simpler speech, _On the Estate of Ciron_ (Or. viii.). The essential facts of the case are as follows:—Ciron by his first marriage had one daughter, the mother of the two claimants. Ciron married a second wife, the sister of Diodes. The son of Ciron’s brother, instigated by Diodes, made a counter-claim on the grounds that (1) Ciron’s daughter was illegitimate and consequently her sons were illegitimate; (2) a brother’s son in any case has a better claim than a daughter’s son. The speaker, the elder of the claimants, first establishes his mother’s legitimacy, proving that Ciron always treated her as his daughter and twice gave her a dowry, and regarded her sons as his natural heirs. ‘Our grandfather Ciron died, not without issue, but leaving as issue my brother and myself, the sons of his legitimate daughter; but the plaintiffs claim the inheritance on the assumption that they are the next of kin, and insult us by the insinuation that we are not sons of Ciron’s daughter, and that he never had a daughter at all. This is due to the claimants’ covetousness and the great amount of Ciron’s estate, which they have seized, and now control. They have the impudence to say that he left nothing, and in the same breath to lay a claim to the inheritance.