Find the figure bounded by a line which has the maximum area for a given perimeter. The solution is a semicircle. The problem is based on a passage from Virgil's Aeneid:
"The Kingdom you see is Carthage, the Tyrians, the town of Agenor;
But the country around is Libya, no folk to meet in war.
Dido, who left the city of Tyre to escape her brother,
Rules here--a long and labyrinthine tale of wrong
Is hers, but I will touch on its salient points in order....Dido, in great disquiet, organised her friends for escape.
They met together, all those who harshly hated the tyrant
Or keenly feared him: they seized some ships which chanced to be ready...
They came to this spot, where to-day you can behold the mighty
Battlements and the rising citadel of New Carthage,
And purchased a site, which was named 'Bull's Hide' after the bargain
By which they should get as much land as they could enclose with a bull's hide."
