Bees, then, know just this fact which is useful to them, that the hexagon is greater than the square and the triangle and will hold more honey for the same expenditure of material in constructing each. But we, claiming a greater share in wisdom than the bees, will investigate a somewhat wider problem, namely that, of all equilateral and equiangular plane figures having an equal perimeter, that which has the greater number of angles is always the greater, and the greatest of then all is the circle having its perimeter equal to them.

- from a study of the Greek mathematician
Pappus (290 - 350B.C) by Sir Thomas Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, Oxford, 1921.