Euclīdes

, a native of Megara, disciple of So crates, B.C. 404. When the A then i ans had forbidden all the people of Megara on pain of death to enter their city, Euclides disguised himself in women’s clothes to introduce himself into the presence of So crates. Diogenes Laërtius , So crates .――A mathematician of Alexandria, who flourished 300 B.C. He distinguished himself by his writings on music and geometry, but particularly by 15 books on the elements of mathematics, which consist of problems and theorems with demonstrations. This work has been greatly mutilated by commentators. Euclid was so respected in his lifetime, that king Ptolemy became one of his pupils. Euclid established a school at Alexandria, which became so famous, that from his age to the time of the Saracen conquest, no mathematician was found but what had studied at Alexandria. He was so respected that Plato, himself a mathematician, being asked concerning the building of an altar at Athens, referred his inquiries to the mathematician of Alexandria. The latest edition of Euclid’s writings is that of Gregory, folio, Oxford, 1703. Valerius Maximus , bk. 8 , ch. 12 .— Cicero , On Oratory , bk. 3 , ch. 72 .