MATHEMATICS IN GREEK EDUCATION 
25 
tion in Egypt, and the study of mathematics in particular, 
could get none of the Samians to listen to him. He adopted 
therefore this plan of communicating his arithmetic and 
geometry, so that it might not perish with him. Selecting 
a young man who from his behaviour in gymnastic exercises 
seemed adaptable and was withal poor, he promised him that, 
if he would learn arithmetic and geometry systematically, he 
would give him sixpence for each ‘figure’ (proposition) that he 
mastered. This went on until the youth got interested in 
the subject, when Pythagoras rightly judged that he would 
gladly go on without the sixpence. He therefore hinted 
that he himself was poor and must try to earn his daily bread 
instead of doing mathematics; whereupon the youth, rather 
than give up the study, volunteered to pay sixpence himself 
to Pythagoras for each proposition. We must presumably 
connect with this story the Pythagorean motto, ‘ a figure and 
a platform (from which to ascend to the next higher step), not 
a figure and sixpence \ l 
The other story is that of a pupil who began to learn 
geometry with Euclid and asked, when he had learnt one 
proposition, ‘What advantage shall I get by learning these 
things 1 ’ And Euclid called the slave and said, ‘ Give him 
sixpence, since he must needs gain by what he learns.’ 
We gather that the education of kings in the Macedonian 
period did not include much geometry, whether it was Alex 
ander who asked Menaechmus, or Ptolemy who asked Euclid, 
for a short-cut to geometry, and got the reply that ‘ for travel 
ling over the country there are royal roads and roads for com 
mon citizens : but in geometry there is one road for all ’. 2 
1 Proclus on Eucl. I, p. 84. 16. 
2 Stobaeus, Ed. ii. 31, 115 (vol, ii, p. 228, 30, Wachsmuth).