572 POPULAR LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 



which he left. On landing in a bay about the 

 middle of the north coast of Africa she obtained 

 a grant from Hiarbas, the native chief of the 

 district, of as much land as she could enclose 

 with an ox-hide. She cut the ox-hide into an 

 exceedingly long strip, and succeeded in enclosing 

 between it and the sea a very valuable territory l 

 on which she built Carthage. 



The next isoperimetrical problem on record 

 was three or four hundred years later, when 

 Horatius Codes, after saving his country by 

 defending the bridge until it was destroyed by 

 the Romans behind him, saved his own life and 

 got back into Rome by swimming the Tiber 

 under the broken bridge, and was rewarded by 

 his grateful countrymen with a grant of as 

 much land as he could plough round in a 

 day. 



In Dido's problem the greatest value of land 

 was to be enclosed by a line of given length. 



1 Called Byrsa, rom fivpoa, the hide of a bull. [Smith's 

 Dictionary . of Greek and Koman Biography and Alythology, 

 article "Dido."] 



