CRATES, the name of two Greek philosophers.
of Athens, successor of Polemo as leader of the Old Academy.
of Thebes, a Cynic philosopher of the latter half of the 4th century B.C. He was the pupil of Diogenes, and the last great representative of cynicism. He gave up his fortune in ac cordance with Cynic principles, and devoted his life to the attain ment of virtue and the teaching of self-control. He married Hip parchia, of a wealthy Thracian family, against her father's wishes. He seems to have lived into the third century. According to Diogenes Laertius, 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. Diogenes Laertius credits him with a short poem, Ilatyvta, 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 Encyklopadie; Diog. Laert. vi.
