Crates

, the most distinguished philosopher of the Cynic sect after Diogenes, was by birth a Theban, and flourished about the 113th olympiad, B. C. 328, and died after the year 287 B. C. He was honourably descended, | and inherited a large estate; but when he devoted himself to philosophy, that he might be free from the dominion of those passions which are fostered by wealth, he distributed his whole properly among the poorer citizens. Leaving his native city, where he had been a disciple of Bryso, he went to Athens, and hecame a zealous disciple of Diogenes adopting all the singularities of his master. In his natural temper, however, he was not, like Diogenes, morose and gloomy, but cheerful and facetious. The following whimsical tarif of expences is attributed to him: To a cook should be given two minae, to a physician a drachma, to a flatterer five talents, to an adviser smoke, a talent to a courtezan, and three oboles to a philosopher. Being asked of what use philosophy was to him? “To teach me,” returned he, “to be contented with a vegetable diet, and to live exempt from care and trouble.” Alexander, curious to see this Cynic, offered to rebuild Thebes, the place of his nativity; “To what purpose?” interrogated Crates; “Another Alexander will destroy it afresh. The contempt of fame, and my complacency with poverty stand me in stead of a country: these are comforts that are above the reach of fortune.” Patient under injuries, he took no other revenge for a blow he had received from a certain Nicodromus, than by writing under the mark of it on his cheek, “Nicodromus fecit.” This disposition attached to him many friends, and procured for him access to the houses of the most wealthy Athenians, and he frequently became an arbiter of disputes and quarrels among relations. His influence in private families is said to have had a great e fleet in correcting the luxuries and vices which prevailed at that time in Athens. His wife, Hipparchia, who was rich and of a good family, and had many suitors, preferred Crates to every other, and when her parents opposed her inclination, so determined was her passion, she threatened to put an end to her life. Crates, at the request of her parents, represented to Hipparchia every circumstance in his condition and manner of -living, which might induce her to change her mind. Slill she persisted in her resolution, and not only became his wife, but adopted all the Cynic peculiarities. Disgraceful tales have been circulated concerning Crates and his wife; but since they do not appear in any writings of the period in which they lived, and are neither mentioned by Epictetus, who wrote an apology for the Cynic philosophy, nor by Lucian or | Athenxus, who were so industrious in accumulating calumnies against philosophers, Brucker thinks they must be set down among the malicious fictions of later writers, who were desirous to bring the Cynic and Stoic sects into discredit. Had either Diogenes or Crates been the beasts which some have represented them, it is wholly incredible that Zeno and the Stoics would have treated their memory with so much respect.

There was another Crates, an Athenian, who succeeded Polemo in the direction of the old academy. Long attached to one another by a similarity of dispositions and pursuits, their friendship was uninterrupted whilst they lived, and they were both buried in the same grave. This Crates died about the year 250 B. C. ¹