Page:A History of Mathematics (1893).djvu/43

 citizen of Athens was well-to-do and enjoyed a large amount of leisure. The government being purely democratic, every citizen was a politician. To make his influence felt among his fellow-men he must, first of all, be educated. Thus there arose a demand for teachers. The supply came principally from Sicily, where Pythagorean doctrines had spread. These teachers were called Sophists, or "wise men." Unlike the Pythagoreans, they accepted pay for their teaching. Although rhetoric was the principal feature of their instruction, they also taught geometry, astronomy, and philosophy. Athens soon became the headquarters of Grecian men of letters, and of mathematicians in particular. The home of mathematics among the Greeks was first in the Ionian Islands, then in Lower Italy, and during the time now under consideration, at Athens.

The geometry of the circle, which had been entirely neglected by the Pythagoreans, was taken up by the Sophists. Nearly all their discoveries were made in connection with their innumerable attempts to solve the following three famous problems:—

(1) To trisect an arc or an angle.

(2) To "double the cube," i.e. to find a cube whose volume is double that of a given cube.

(3) To "square the circle," i.e. to find a square or some other rectilinear figure exactly equal in area to a given circle.

These problems have probably been the subject of more discussion and research than any other problems in mathematics. The bisection of an angle was one of the easiest problems in geometry. The trisection of an angle, on the other hand, presented unexpected difficulties. A right angle had been divided into three equal parts by the Pythagoreans. But the general problem, though easy in appearance, transcended the power of elementary geometry. Among the first