"Hippocrates of Chios... was one of the greatest of the Greek geometricians. He... began life as a merchant. The accounts differ as to whether he was swindled by the Athenian custom-house officials who were stationed at the Chersonese, or whether one of his vessels was captured by an Athenian pirate near ... somewhere about 430 B.C. he came to Athens to try to recover his property in the law courts. ...the Athenians seem only to have laughed at him for his simplicity, first in allowing himself to be cheated, and then in hoping to recover his money. While prosecuting his cause he attended the lectures of various philosophers, and finally (in all probability to earn a living) opened a school of geometry himself. He seems to have been well acquainted with the Pythagorean philosophy, though there is no sufficient authority that he was ever initiated as a Pythagorean."