Not long after he begins to study algebra he will likely meet with the "tank" problems, the "labor" problems and many other puzzle problems. He finds these problems carefully phrased in the language of practical mathematics. However, a study of the original problems and the fanciful way in which they were stated will reveal the fact that they were originally intended mostly for puzzles. The present-day student of algebra would doubtless work as industriously over the so-called practical problems if he were told they were puzzle problems that his predecessors had worked on for the past 1600 years. The problems given below are selected from a collection made by Metrodorus about 310 A. D. found in The Greek Anthology. It is not known how much farther back they date. It will not be difficult for the reader to trace many of the problems found in the present-day algebras back to their original source. He may judge for himself as to whether the modern text-book writer has improved the problems by leaving off the little fanciful touches of rhetoric, found in the original.

The original problems were solved by rhetorical algebra as our symbols, +, -, ×, ÷, etc., were introduced many centuries later, about 1540.