HIPPIAS ON THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS
CHAPTER III
HOW HIPPIAS AND DANIEL AND TITUS WROTE THEIR NUMBERS
"What is the story to- night ? " asked the Tease as she came into the long room and stood before the fire, while the Crowd drew up the chairs.
Story ? Who said there was to be any story at all ? " asked he of the curious book as he turned a new page.
" We always have a story," replied the Tease . " We have n't missed a single evening since we began.
" But we began only two nights ago. "
ee' Yes, and this will make the third story," said George.
But we must stop sometime," replied the Story-Teller, " and this is a good place."
" 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 (hip' s ) and Daniel and Titus (ti'tus )."
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
ANCIENT COINS
Coins found in Asia Minor. They are among the earliest known, dating from about
"Ancient Times ")
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 550 B.C. ( From Breasted's getting old enough to have 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
OF LONG AGO
centuries before Hippias played about the Acropolis (å krop'ò lis) 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'ga mon ), in Asia Minor, and from the name of
PARCHMENT ROLL
rolls that people this city comes the word " parch- It was on such ment." It was many centuries after Hippias lived before the world began to use paper.
wrote in the time of Hippias
numbers on Hippias learned to write his parchment, using Greek characters that were very different from our numerals.
