Greek mathematicians understood the determination of an area of a figure as the process of geometrically constructing a square having the same area (squaring), thus the name quadrature for this process. The Greek geometers were not always successful (see quadrature of the circle), but they did carry out quadratures of some figures whose sides were not simply line segments, such as the lunes of Hippocrates and the quadrature of the parabola. By a certain Greek tradition, these constructions had to be performed using only a compass and straightedge, though not all Greek mathematician adhered to this dictum.