CRATES, the name of two Greek philosophers.
1. Crates, of Athens, successor of Polemo as leader of the Old Academy.
2. Crates, of Thebes, a Cynic philosopher of the latter half of the 4th century. He was the famous pupil of Diogenes, and the last great representative of Cynicism. It is said that he lost his ample fortune owing to the Macedonian invasion, but a more probable story is that he sacrificed it in accordance with his principles, directing the banker, to whom he entrusted it, to give it to his sons if they should prove fools, but to the poor if his sons should prove philosophers. He gave up his life to the attainment of virtue and the propagation of ascetic self-control. His habit of entering houses for this purpose, uninvited, earned him the nickname Θυρεπανοίκτης (“Door-opener”). His marriage with Hipparchia, daughter of a wealthy Thracian family, was in curious contrast to the prosaic character of his life. Attracted by the nobility of his character and undeterred by his poverty and ugliness, she insisted on becoming his wife in defiance of her father’s commands. The date of his death is unknown, though he seems to have lived into the 3rd century. His writings were few. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he was the author of a number of letters on philosophical subjects; but those extant under the name of Crates (R. Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci, 1873) are, spurious, the work of later rhetoricians. Diogenes Laërtius credits him with a short poem, Παίγνια, and several philosophic tragedies. Plutarch’s life of Crates is lost. The great importance of Crates’ work is that he formed the link between Cynicism and the Stoics, Zeno of Citium being his pupil.
See N. Postumus, De Cratete Cynico (1823); F. Mullach, Frag. Philosophorum Graecorum, ii. (1867); E. Wellmann in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyklopädie; Diog. Laërt. vi. 85-93, 96-98.
CRATES, of Mallus in Cilicia, a Greek grammarian and Stoic philosopher of the 2nd century B.C., leader of the literary school and head of the library of Pergamum. His principles were opposed to those of Aristarchus, the leader of the Alexandrian school. He was the chief representative of the allegorical theory of exegesis, and maintained that Homer intended to express scientific or philosophical truths in the form of poetry. About 170 B.C. he visited Rome as ambassador of Attalus II., king of Pergamum; and having broken his leg and been compelled to stay there for some time, he delivered lectures which gave the first impulse to the study of grammar and criticism among the Romans (Suetonius, De grammaticis, 2). His chief work was a critical and exegetical commentary on Homer.
See C. Wachsmuth, De Cratete Mallota (1860), containing an account of the life, pupils and writings of Crates; J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. i. 156 (ed. 2, 1906).
CRATINUS (c. 520-423 B.C.), Athenian comic poet, chief representative of the old, and founder of political, comedy. Hardly anything is known of his life, and only fragments of his works have been preserved. But a good idea of their character can be gained from the opinions of his contemporaries, especially Aristophanes. His comedies were chiefly distinguished by their direct and vigorous political satire, a marked exception being the burlesque Ὀδυσσεῖς, dealing with the story of Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemus, probably written while a law was in force forbidding all political references on the stage. They were also remarkable for the absence of the parabasis and chorus. Persius calls the author “the bold,” and even Pericles at the height of his power did not escape his vehement attacks, as in the Nemesis and Archilochi, the last-named a lament for the loss of the recently deceased Cimon, with whose conservative sentiments Cratinus was in sympathy. The Panoptae was a satire on the sophists and omniscient speculative philosophers of the day. Of his last comedy the plot has come down to us. It was occasioned by the sneers of Aristophanes and others, who declared that he was no better than a doting drunkard. Roused by the taunt, Cratinus put forth all his strength, and in 423 B.C. produced the Πυτίνη, or Bottle, which gained the first prize over the Clouds of Aristophanes. In this comedy, good-humouredly making fun of his own weakness, Cratinus represents the comic muse as the faithful wife of his youth. His guilty fondness for a rival—the bottle—has aroused her jealousy. She demands a divorce from the archon; but her husband’s love is not dead and he returns penitent to her side. In Grenfell and Hunt’s Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iv. (1904), containing a further instalment of their edition of the Behnesa papyri discovered by them in 1896-1897, one of the greatest curiosities is a scrap of paper bearing the argument of a play by Cratinus,—the Dionysalexandros (i.e. Dionysus in the part of Paris), aimed against Pericles; and the epitome reveals something of its wit and point. The style of Cratinus has been likened to that of Aeschylus; and Aristophanes, in the Knights, compares him to a rushing torrent. He appears to have been fond of lofty diction and bold figures, and was most successful in the lyrical parts of his dramas, his choruses being the popular festal songs of his day. According to the statement of a doubtful authority, which is not borne out by Aristotle, Cratinus increased the number of actors in comedy to three. He wrote 21 comedies and gained the prize nine times.
Fragments in Meineke, Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum, or Kock, Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta. A younger Cratinus flourished in the time of Alexander the Great. It is considered that some of the comedies ascribed to the elder Cratinus were really the work of the younger.