Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/46

OF LONG AGO centuries before Hippias played about the Acropolis (å krŏp'ṓ lĭs) at Athens and learned how the merchants wrote their numbers on a parchment roll. For not only had the people invented new ways of writing numbers but they had invented something new on which to write. They tried for a time to use long strips of leather sewed together and rolled up, and on these they wrote with a brush dipped in black ink. They then found that they could whiten and toughen the skins of sheep and calves so as to make them better suited for writing. This was first done in a city called Pergamon (pûr'gå mŏn), in Asia Minor, and from the name of this city comes the word “parchment.” It was many centuries after Hippias lived before the world began tp use paper. Hippias learned to write his numbers on parchment, using Greek characters that were very different from our numerals. 25