Crantor

, the last celebrated philosopher of the Old Academy, a native of Soli in Cilicia, flourished about 30O years B. C. and died about the 270th year B. C. He studied under Xenocrates and Polemo; and he was the first who wrote commentaries on the works of Plato, whose system he supported. He was highly celebrated for the purity of his moral doctrine, as we may infer from the praises that are bestowed by the ancients upon his discourse “On Grief,” which Cicero calls “a small but golden piece, adapted to heal the wounds of the mind, not by encouraging stoical insensibility, but by suggesting arguments drawn from the purest fountains of philosophy.” That Grantor acquired great reputation as a moral preceptor is intimated by Horace.

"Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,

Planius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit."

"Who better taught fair virtue’s sacred rules,

Than Crantor and Chrysippus in the schools."