Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/45

NUMBER STORIES “Oh, there is a great deal more that we want to know,”“” said the Tease.

“What is it you wish to know?”

“The thing you are going to tell us,” answered the Tease.

“Then,” said the Story-Teller, “it must be about Hippias (hĭp'ĭås) and Daniel and Titus (tī'tŭs).”

And this is the story he told:

Many years after Chang had learned to write numbers in his home on the banks of the Yellow River, and Lugal to do so in Mesopotamia, and Ahmes to do so by the temple on the Nile, there lived in Greece a boy who was known as Hippias.

The world was now getting old enough to haye money for use in the shops, so that merchants not only traded their wares as they did in the days of Chang and Lugal and Ahmes but they sold them for copper and silver coins. This is the reason why there was more need for numbers than in the 24