A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

884 CRATES.
thinks may have been taken from some comic poet
who was an enemy to Crates. There is much
confusion among the ancient writers about the
number and titles of his plays. Suidas has made
two comic poets of the name, but there can be
little doubt that he is wrong. Other grammarians
assign to him seven and eight comedies respectively.
(Anon. de Com. pp. xxix, xxxiv.) The result of
Meineke's analysis of the statements of the ancient
writers is, that fourteen plays are ascribed to
Crates, namely, Felroves, Aiovuos, "Hpwes, Opia,
0jecravpds, Adczua, MeLrotot, "OptLes, Haaira'i,
I-5rajTa, 'P'Topes, cdito, TlAhuat, ihAdcpyvpos, of
which the following are suspicious, Atdovvoos,
O~7oavpds, ME-roi0Lcot,OpVO0ES, Els0rTas, lhiAdpyvpos,
thus leaving eight, the number mentioned by the
Anonymous writer on Comedy, namely, Fe-roves,
"Hpces, O vpia, Adta, satsicam, 'PjTropes, sao',01
Tdoh\alt. Of these eight plays fragments are still
extant. There are also seventeen fragments,
which cannot be assigned to their proper plays.
The language of Crates is pure, elegant, and simple, with very few peculiar words and constructions. He uses a very rare metrical peculiarity,
namely, a spondaic ending to the anapaestic tetrameter. (Poll. vi. 53; Athen. iii. p. 119, c.; Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. i. pp. 58-66, ii. pp. 231
-251; Bergk, Comment. de Reliq. Comm. Ait.
Antiq. pp. 266-283.) [P. S.]
CRATES (Kpdarqs), of MALLUS in Cilicia, the
son of Timocrates, is said by Suidas (s. v.) to have
been a Stoic philosopher, but is far better known as
one of the most distinguished of the ancient Greek
grammarians. He lived in the reign of Ptolemy
Philometor, and was contemporary with Aristarchus, in rivalry with whom he supported the fame
of the Pergamene school of grammar against
the Alexandrian, and the system of anomaly (&vwpeaxa) against that of analogy (divaoyia). He is
said by Varro to have derived his grammatical
system from a certain Chrysippus, who left six
books -repi 7-rs ociwwMaXcas. He was born at Mallus in Cilicia, and was brought up at Tarsus,
whence he removed to Pergamus, and there lived
under the patronage of Eumenes II. and Attalus
II. He was the founder of the Pergamene school
of grammar, and seems to have been at one time
the chief librarian. About the year 157 B. c.,
shortly after the death of Ennius, Crates was
sent by Attains as an ambassador to Rome, where
he introduced for the first time the study of grammar. The results of his visit lasted a long time,
as may be observed especially in the writings of
Varro. (Sueton. de Illustr. Grammat. 2.) An
accident, by which he broke a leg, gave him the
leisure, which his official duties might otherwise
have interrupted, for holding frequent grammatical
lectures (d1cpodoeis). We know nothing further
of the life of Crates.
In the grammatical system of Crates a strong
distinction was made between criticism ind grammar, the latter of which sciences he regarded as
quite subordinate to the former. The office of the
critic, according to Crates, was to investigate
everything which could throw light upon literature, either from within or from without; that of
the grammarian was only to apply the rules of
language to clear up the meaning of particular
passages, and to settle the text, the prosody, the
accentuation, and so forth, of the ancient writers.
From this part of his system, Crates derived the

CRATES.
surname of Kp-rucods. This title is derived by some
from the fact that, like Aristarchus, Crates gave the
greatest attention to the Homeric poems, from his
labours upon which he was also surnamed'OupaptcKs.
His chief work is entitled AtLpOwrIs' 'IAIhd5os cal
"OlvoeesaY, in nine books, by which we are probably to understand, not a recension of the Homeric poems, dividing them into nine books, but
that the commentary of Crates itself was divided
into nine books.
The few fragments of this commentary, which
are preserved by the Scholiasts and other ancient
writers, have led Wolf to express a very unfavourable opinion of Crates. As to his emendations, it
must be admitted that he was far inferior to Aristarchus in judgment, but it is equally certain that
he was most ingenious in conjectural emendations.
Several of his readings are to this day preferred
by the best scholars to those of Aristarchus. As
for his excursions into all the scientific and historical questions for which Homer furnishes an occasion, it was the direct consequence of his opinion
of the critic's office, that he should undertake them,
nor do the results of his inquiries quite deserve
the contempt with which Wolf treats them.
Among the ancients themselves he enjoyed a reputation little, if at all, inferior to that of Aristarchus. The school which he founded at Pergamus
flourished a considerable time, and was the subject
of a work by Ptolemy of Ascalon, entitled mrepl Tijs
Kpargreiov alpai-Ews. To this school Wolf refers
the catalogues of ancient writers which are mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (i v -o^
1-ep-yaA7yos mrivaei, ii. p. 118, 5, ed. Sylburg.),
who also mentions the school by the name of Tobs
Ec nepydpov "yppajuyarTuovys (p. 112, 27). They
are also called Kpa-rLreto. Among the catalogues
mentioned by Dionysius there can be no doubt
that we ought to include the lists of titles (dva'pa(pal) of dramas, which Athenaeus (viii. p. 336, c.)
states to have been composed by the Pergamenes.
Besides his work on Homer, Crates wrote commentaries on the Theogony of Hesiod, on Euripides,
on Aristophanes, and probably on other ancient
authors, a work on the Attic dialect (repl A-mTTIataAE'crov), and works on geography, natural history, and agriculture, of all which only a few fragments exist. Some scholars, however, think, that
the Crates of Pergamus, whose work on the wonders of various countries is quoted by Pliny (H.
N. vii. 2) and Aelian (II. A. xvii. 9), was a
different person. The fragments of his works
are collected by C. F. Wegener (De Aula Attalica
Litt. Artiumqueq Fautrice, Havn. 1836, 8vo.) There
is also one epigram by him in the Greek Anthology
(ii. 3, Brunck and Jacobs) upon Choerilus. This
epigram is assigned to Crates on the authority of
its title, Kpd'rS'ros ypa,,UaarncoV. But Diogenes
La;rtius mentions an epigrammatic poet of the
name, as distinct from the grammarian.
(Suidas, s. v. KprT-s, 'Aplo-rapXoý; Diog. Laert.
iv. 23; Strabo, pp. 3, 4, 30, 157, 439, 609,
676, &c.; Athen. xi. p. 497, f.; Varro, de L. L. viii.
64, 68, ix. 1; Sext. Empir. adv. Math. i. c. 3.
~ 79, c. 12. ~ 248; Schol. in Homs. passim; Plin.
H. N. iv. 12; Wolf, Proleg. in lHom. li.; Thiersch,
Ueber das Zeitalter und Vaterland des Flower, pp.
19-64; Lersch, Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten,
i. pp. 67, 69-72, 112, ii. 148, 243; Fabric. Bibl.
Graec. i. pp. 318, 509, iii. p. 558; Clinton, Fast.
Hell. iii. pp. 528, 529.) [P. S.]