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Sesostris also, they declared, made a division of the soil of Egypt
among the inhabitants, assigning square plots of ground of equal size
to all, and obtaining his chief revenue from the rent which the holders
were required to pay him year by year. If the river carried away any
portion of a man's lot, he appeared before the king, and related what
had happened; upon which the king sent persons to examine, and
determine by measurement the exact extent of the loss; and thenceforth
only such a rent was demanded of him as was proportionate to the reduced
size of his land. From this practice, I think, geometry first came
to be known in Egypt, whence it passed into Greece. The sun-dial,
however, and the gnomon with the division of the day into twelve
parts, were received by the Greeks from the Babylonians.
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