CRATES “1Crates: —Son of Ascondas, of Thebes. He too was one of the famous disciples of the Dog （i.e. Diogenes） … He flourished in the 113th Olympiad （328-5 b.c.）”

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

“Of Phryne herself the Thespians made a gold statue and dedicated it upon a column of Pentelic marble at Delphi; it was the work of Praxiteles. When Crates the Cynic saw it he exclaimed ‘Dedicated by the incontinence of the Greeks.’2”

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner

“Some have made exile and loss of their goods a means to leisure and the study of philosophy, for instance Diogenes and Crates.3”

Plutarch How to Benefit by our Enemies

“We are told that when Demetrius of Phalerum was banished his country and was living in obscurity and mean circumstances near Thebes, he was little pleased to see Crates approach, expecting to be treated with the outspokenness and harshness of the Cynics. But when Crates addressed him kindly and spoke of banishment, saying that it had no sting, and a man rid once for all of dangers and uncertainties had no cause to bewail his lot, and at the same time urging him to have confidence in himself and his condition, he took heart of grace and exclaimed to his friends ‘Fie on the labours and distractions which prevented me from knowing such a man as this!’”

Plutarch How to tell a Flatterer from a Friend

“‘Crates lets go of Crates’ goods lest Crates' goods out-Crates Crates’:4 It seems that Crates, a Boeotian by extraction, desiring to adopt the Cynic philosophy, took his possessions and threw them to the people, making the above proverb-like pronouncement.5”

Apostolius Proverbs

Lest anyone think me to be speaking without book, I will subjoin a few passages from the Toys or Humorous Poems of Crates:6

Splendid Children of Memory and Olympian Zeus, give ear, Pierian Muses, unto my prayer. Grant fodder without fail unto my belly, which hath ever made my living of the frugalest short of slavery …7 Make me rather profitable than pleasant to my friends. Fine possessions I wish not to gather, as who should crave the wealth of a beetle or the riches of an ant, but my prayer is to partake of righteousness and win a prosperity that is borne easily and gotten easily, valuable unto virtue. The which if I get, I will propitiate Hermes and the holy Muses not with rich spendings but with pure virtues.

Julian Orations

Hymn to Thrift

Crates moreover composed a Hymn to Thrift :8

Hail, thou Goddess Queen, darling of the wise, Thrift that art sprung of renown'd Temperance; thy virtues are honoured by all who practise righteousness.

Julian Orations

But you, who think so much of Aristarchus, turn a deaf ear to Crates when he reads:

Ocean, that is the father of them all, Both men and Gods, pours over much o' th' earth.9

Plutarch The Face in the Moon

[Stilpo]: And again, on seeing Crates pinched with the cold in winter, he remarked ‘You seem to me, Crates, to need a new coat ’ [which also means a coat and wits , or as we might put it ‘Why not weave the wool you gather?’]; annoyed by this, Crates replied with the following parody:10

And Stilpo eke saw I in toilsome woe At Megara,11 where' tis said Typhoeus sleeps;12 There wrangled he, with comrades thronged, and ran A letter-shifting goose-chase after Virtue.13

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

[Menedemus]: He appears to have thought quite enough of himself; and so is thus taken off by Crates:

Asclepiades of Phlius and the Bull Eretrian14

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

Do you not see that there is much to be got both from land and sea?15 And yet in Crates' words:16

And Micylus saw I17 ….. Carding some wool, his goodwife carding too, Fleeing from Famine in a death-grip dire.18

Plutarch Against Borrowing

“The following Toys or humorous verses of his are well known:

Wallet's a town i' th' wine-dark sea of Folly; Fair 'tis and fat, all dirt,19 and ne'er a groat in 't. Thither ne'er sails the foolish parasite Nor lickerish catamite with watering mouth, But thyme it bears and garlic, figs and loaves; O'er these things ne'er do her possessors quarrel Nor stand to arms for farthings or for fame.20

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers [Crates]

And Antisthenes prefers madness to pleasure, and the Theban Crates says:

And those she sways in pride that such they be Serve neither gold nor loves that waste the wits, Nor have they truck with wanton violence;

and he sums up thus:

Unbound, unbent by Pleasure's servitude, Their queen's immortal Freedom whom they love.21

Clement of Alexandria Miscellanies

Now Crates, who believed that discord and despotism were chiefly due to luxury and extravagance, gave the following humorous advice:

Embroil us not by making more of a pot than pottage.22

Plutarch Precepts of Health

“And what is there distressing or painful about poverty? Were not Crates and Diogenes poor? Yet how easily did they live! They became humble men and beggars, and able to put up with a cheap and simple way of life. Are you oppressed with difficulties and debts? Then in Crates' words,

Gather but beans and cockles in a pot, And you shall triumph over Penury.

Teles in Stobaeus Anthology

[Crates]: There is also this of his:

My lore, my thoughts, and what the Muse hath given Of pride, are mine; my great wealth 's gone to smoke.23

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

[Crates]: When he had been flogged by the gymnasium-master at Thebes —or according to another version by Euthycrates at Corinth —and was being dragged by the heels, he remarked unconcernedly:

Hale by the foot across the heavenly threshold24

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

[Crates]: Feeling that death was near, he sang himself the following incantation:

Hunchback, you're on the way to Hades' home.

For time had bowed his back.

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

“Crates calls flatterers syncataneusiphagous, that is

eaters by mutual consent.25

Stobaeus Anthology [on flattery]

26[Crates]: There is also the well-known Ledger which runs as follows:

Put down ‘Cook—forty pounds; Surgeon—a shilling; Flatterer—a thousand guineas; Mentor—smoke; Harlot—two hundred pounds; Wise man rthree pence.’

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

“What Crates says savours well:

Thou know'st not how great strength there lies in these — A wallet, a peck of pease, and never a care.27

Teles in Stobaeus Anthology

[Crates]: This also of his is well known:

Love's checked by hunger, failing that, by time; And if you cannot wait, a running noose.28

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers

“Crates: —

I'm bent by Time, the great artificer, Who being deft yet weakens all he makes.

Stobaeus Anthology [old age]

Crates from Antiphanes:—29

You taunt me with my age as 't were an ill; Yet he that gets not Eld is put to death, And all desire it; but and if it come We are sorry; such is man's ingratitude.30

Stobaeus Anthology [old age]

And even poverty, Epictetus would say, is nothing terrible, or it would have seemed so to Crates of Thebes, who only considered himself free when he had given up his possessions to his country. Then, saying ‘Crates robs,’ etc. he put a wreath as of freedom upon his head because he had exchanged poverty for affluence.

Crates robs Crates of his chattels, lest They come to be possessor, he possest. Crates of Thebes hereby sets Crates free.31

Simplicius on Epictetus

“Crates … saying ‘Crates of Thebes sets Crates free.’”

Isidore of Pelusium Letters

“ … rushing out into the marketplace, he threw away his possessions like a load of refuse that gave more trouble than it was worth, and cried to the crowd that gathered ‘Crates sets Crates free.’”

Apuleius Florida

“Crates the philosopher … philosophising said: ‘Crates sets free the goods of Crates lest they come to be the possessor and he the possessed.’”

John of Damascus

“Crates in like manner setting himself above riches, and turning his goods into a sheepwalk32 as being abettors of vice and makers of slaves, rose above an altar and made loud proclamation as though in the midst of Olympia, to this wondrous effect, ‘Crates of Thebes’ etc., knowing that the possession of goods is servitude.”

Gregory of Nazianzus Poems

“Crates:—This man turned his goods into a sheepwalk, and rising upon the altar said: ‘Crates of Thebes,’ etc.”

Suidas Lexicon

It is said that the same Crates —or, as some say, another philosopher equally wise —when a storm arose at sea and the ship was in danger of foundering because of her freight, threw his goods （ or money） overboard with this memorable remark:

Thanks to thee, Luck, who s't taught me what is good, How easily a smock holds all I am!33

Gregory of Nazianzus （continuing）

“If that quantity of corn was sold at that price in your city in summer, what were you to expect at the season of the year when, in the words of the Boeotian poet,

'Tis hard there should be dearth in harvest-time.

Julian Beard-hater

34There is also current a work of Crates entitled Letters, containing excellent philosophy and in a style sometimes approaching Plato's. He also wrote Tragedies, which display a philosophy of a very high type; compare:

Not one tower only hath my home, nor roof; The house and citadel of all dry land Is, for the taking, mine to dwell therein.35

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers:

1 See also Sext. Emp. Hypot. 3. 200, Ath. 10. 422c, Luc. Gall. 20, Plut. Tranq. 4, Demetr. Eloc. 170 and C.'s Life in Diogenes Laertius.

2 cf. Plut. Pyth. Or. 14, Alex. Fort. 2. 3

3 cf. Luc. D.M. 11, 27; Plut. wrote a Life of Crates , cf. Jul. Or. 6. 200 b, Apost. 17. 75

4 lit. overcome Crates; but there is a pun in the Gk.

5 cf. fr. 20

6 parody of Sol. fr. 13: cf. Jul. Or. 7. 213a

7 one line （prob. only one, cf. Sol.） lost

8 Jul. has lines 1-2, A.P. 10. 104. 1-3, cf. Clem. Al. Paed. 3. 53. 3, Apost. 8. 13a

9 parody of Homer; Plut. playfully suggests that line 2 was interpolated by C. into the text

10 cf. Hes. Mil. 52: the 1st line substitutes Stilpo for the Tantalus of Od. Il. 582 （cf. Plat. Prot. 315 c）, the 2nd at Megara for among the Arimi in Il. 5. 783, the 3rd there wrangled he for he shall lie wounded in Il. 8. 537

11 the Gk. also means in the mansion

12 the discomfort of the Titan Typhoeus under Etna was said to cause the eruptions, cf. Pind. P .i. 15

13 cf. Arist. Rhet. 3. Il; τὸ παρὰ γράμμα is used loosely of any kind of pun

14 cf. Hes. Mil.36: parodying the story of Theseus and the Marathonian Bull, Eretria being M.'s birthplace and Ascl. the friend with whom he attended, after abandoning Plato, the lectures of Stilpo at Megara

15 without need to borrow

16 Plut. takes καὶ μὴν which in Crates means and moreover as meaning and yet

17 half a line left out by Plut.; parody of Od. Il. 593 ‘And Sisyphus saw I in bitter woe’: M. is a poor tailor in Callim. Ep. 26 and in Luc. Gall. and Catapl.

18 parody of Od. 12. 257 ‘stretching to me their hands in death-grip dire,’of the companions of Odysseus being devoured by Scylla

19 parody of Od. 19.172 ‘Crete is a country in the wine-dark sea; | Fair 'tis and fat, sea-girt’

20 cf. Demetr. Eloc. 259 （1）, Apul. Apol. 22 （1）, Clem. Al. Paed. 2. 93.4

21 cf. Theodoret Gr. Aff. 12. 49

22 cf. Ath. 4. 158 b

23 parody of the paraphrase of part of the supposed inscription on the tomb of Sardanapalus: Strabo 14. 672 gives Choerilus' translation （?） of the Assyrian a‘ Eat, drink, play; for all else is not worth this’ （ i.e. a snap of the fingers], adding ‘moreover the following epic version is current “My food, my triumphs, and what Love hath given | Of joy, are mine; my great wealth all is gone”’ （A.P. 7. 325 for triumphs reads drink , but see Choer. ap. Str.）; cf. Cram. A.O. 4. 219, Plut. de Se Laud. 17, A.P. 7. 326, Sch. Ar. Av. 1021, Chrysipp. ap. Ath. 7. 337 a, Phoen. Col. ap. Ath. 530e

24 from Il. I.591 where Hephaestus says ‘hurled （me） by the foot from off the heavenly threshold’

25 i.e. they get their keep in return for their flattery

26 see fr. 23 n2

27 cf. Diog. L. 6. 86

28 cf. Jul. Or. 6. 198 d, Suid. Κράτης , Paroem. 2 p. 754, Clem. Al. Str. 2. 121. 2, Theodoret 12. 172; A.P. 9.497 expands line 2 into ‘and if this will not quench the flame, your sole resource is to know a halter’ （but there are difficulties in the Gk. text）

29 or, emending the Gk. from the poem to Antiphanes

30 cf. Theogn. 819

31 the passage of Simpl. seems to imply that 21 came near to 20, but it was not necessarily part of the same piece

32 i.e. laying them waste, destroying them

33 in the Greek there is prob. a play on two meanings of συστλέλλομαι , to cut down or reduce, and to wrap up

34 some of the above iambic fragments may belong under this heading

35 Dummler compares Anon. Trag. 392 Nauck （prob. the orig. of C's lines） and Teles ap. Stob. Fl. 40. 8 （which suggests that the speaker is Heracles）