VI. But there were ten people of the name of Crates. The first was a poet of the old comedy; the second was an orator of Tralles, a pupil of Isocrates; the third was an engineer who served under Alexander; the fourth a Cynic, whom we shall mention hereafter; the fifth a Peripatetic philosopher; the sixth the Academic philosopher, of whom we are speaking; the seventh a grammarian of Malos; the eighth a writer in geometry; the ninth an epigrammatic poet; the tenth was an Academic philosopher, a native of Tarsus.
LIFE OF CRANTOR.
I. Crantor, a native of Soli, being admired very greatly in his own country, came to Athens and became a pupil of Xenocrates at the same time with Polemo.
II. And he left behind him memorials, in the shape of writings, to the number of 30,000 lines, some of which, however, are by some writers attributed to Arcesilaus.
III. They say of him that when he was asked what it was that he was so charmed with in Polemo, he replied, “That he had never heard him speak in too high or too low a key.”
IV. When he was ill he retired to the temple of Æsculapius, and there walked about, and people came to him from all quarters, thinking that he had gone thither, not on account of any disease, but because he wished to establish a school there.
V. And among those who came to him was Arcesilaus, wishing to be recommended by him to Polemo, although he was much attached to him, as we shall mention in the life of Arcesilaus. But when he got well he became a pupil of Polemo, and was excessively admired on that account. It is said, also, that he left his property to Arcesilaus, to the amount of twelve talents; and that, being asked by him where he would like to be buried, he said:—
It is a happy fate to lie entombed
In the recesses of a well-lov’d land.
VI. It is said also that he wrote poems, and that he sealed them up in the temple of Minerva, in his own country; and Theætetus the poet wrote thus about him:—