24 
INTRODUCTORY 
M. 
names, to remember them all. As a detail, we are told that 
he got no fees for his lectures in Sparta, and that the Spartans 
could not endure lectures on astronomy or geometry or 
logistic; it was only a small minority of them who could 
even count; what they liked was history and archaeology. 
The above is almost all that we know of the part played 
by mathematics in the Greek system of education. Plato’s 
attitude towards mathematics was, as we have seen, quite 
exceptional; and it was no doubt largely owing to his influence 
and his inspiration that mathematics and astronomy were so 
enormously advanced in his school, and especially by Eudoxus 
of Cnidos and Heraclides of Pontus. But the popular atti 
tude towards Plato’s style of lecturing was not encouraging. 
There is a story of a lecture of his on ‘The Good’ which 
Aristotle was fond of telling. 1 The lecture was attended by 
a great crowd, and ‘ every one went there with the idea that 
he would be put in the way of getting one or other of the 
things in human life which are usually accounted good, such 
as Riches, Health, Strength, or, generally, any extraordinary 
gift of fortune. But when they found that Plato discoursed 
about mathematics, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, and 
finally declared the One to be the Good, no wonder they were 
altogether taken by surprise; insomuch that in the end some 
of the audience were inclined to scoff at the whole thing, while 
others objected to it altogether.’ Plato, however, was able to 
pick and choose his pupils, and he could therefore insist on 
compliance with the notice which he is said to have put over ' 
his porch, ‘ Let no one unversed in geometry enter my doors ’; 2 
and similarly Xenocrates, who, after Speusippus, succeeded to 
the headship of the school, could turn away an applicant for 
admission who knew no geometry with the words, ‘ Go thy 
way, for thou hast not the means of getting a grip of 
philosophy ’. 3 
The usual attitude towards mathematics is illustrated by 
two stories of Pythagoras and Euclid respectively. Pytha 
goras, we are told, 4 anxious as he was to transplant to his own 
country the system of education which he had seen in opera- 
1 Aristoxenus, Harmonica, ii ad inh. 
2 Tzetzes, Chiliad, viii. 972. 3 Diog. L. iv. 10. 
4 lamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 5. 
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