Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/902

Rh hU CRATES. thinks may have been taken from some comic poet who was an enemy to Cnites. 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 Cnites, namely, rdroves, Ato'j'i/(Toy,"Hp«€s, ©Tjpto, &r)(ravp6s, Aduia, MeToiKoi, "Oprtfles, Ilat^iai, Ue^iJTai, 'Pi^T0f}f9, Sa^ioi, ToX/iai, ^lAapyupos, of which the following are suspicious, Ai6vv(tos, 0r]co/,"'Opj'j0€S, IleS^roi, ^iKcipyvpos^ thus leaving eight, the number mentioned by the Anonymous writer on Comedy, namely, Teiroves, "Hpcoey, ©Tjpt'o, Ao;ina, FlaiStai, 'PjjTopes, 2o/ito«, ToA/xat. 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 sim- ple, with very few peculiar words and construc- tions. He uses a very rare metrical peculiarity, namely, a spondaic ending to the anapaestic tetra- meter. (Poll. vi. 53; Athcn. iii. p. 119, c. ; Mei- neke, Fraff. Com. Graec. i. pp. 58 — QQ, ii. pp. 2',M — 251 ; Bergk, Comment, de Reliq. Comm. Alt. Antui. pp. 266— -28.1) [P. S.] CRATES (KpaTTjs), 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 Pliilometor, and was contemporary with Aristar- chiis, in ri'nlry with whom he supported the fame of the Pergamene school of grammar against the Alexandrian, and the system of u7iomaiy (dU-w- fxaXia) against that of anahniif {avaXoyia). He is said by Varro to have derived his grammatical system from a certain Chrysippus, who left six books TTfpl T77S avwfxakiat. He was bom at Mal- lus in Cilicia, and was brought up at Tarsus, whence he removed to Pergamus, and there lived under the patronage of Eumenes II. and Attains II. He was the founder of the Pergamene school of grammar, and seems to have been at one time the chief li])rarian. 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 gram- mar. The results of his visit lasted a long time, as may be observed especially in the writings of Varro. (Sueton. de Jllustr. 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 {aKptaaeis). We know nothing further of the life of Crates. In the grammatical system of Crates a strong distinction was made between o-iiicism and tiram- niar, 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 literar ture, either from within or from without ; that of the grammarian was onlj- 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 KpiriKos. This title is derived oy 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'O.uTjpj/cds. His chief work is entitled AiopBwcris 'iKiddos Koi bably to understand, not a recension of the Ho- meric 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 unfavour- able opinion of Crates. As to his emendations, it must be admitted that he was far inferior to Aris- tarchus 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 histo- rical questions for which Homer furnishes an occa- sion, 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 enjoj'ed a re- putation little, if at all, inferior to that of Aristar- chus. The school which he founded at Pergamus flourished a considerable time, and was the subject of a work by Ptolemy of Ascalon, entitled ircpl rijs KparriTfiov aipeVews. To this school Wolf refers the catalogues of ancient writers which are men- tioned by Dionysius of Halicamassus (fV roTs Uffryafiijvols irtVa^j, ii. p, 118, 5, ed. Sylburg.), who also mentions the school by the name of tovs fK UepydiJiou ypajxnariKois (p. 112, 27). They are also called KpaTTjTctot. Among the catalogues mentioned by Dionysius there can be no doubt that we ought to include the lists of titles {ava- ypa<pal) of dramas, which Athenaeus (viii. p. 336, c.) states to have been composed by the Pergamenes. Besides his work on Homer, Crates wrote com- mentaries on the Theogovy of Hesiod, on Euripides, on Aristophanes, and probably on other ancient authors, a work on the Attic dialect (^rcpl Attj/c^j ^iaXiKTov and works on geography, natural his- tory, and agriculture, of all which only a few frag- ments exist. Some scholars, however, think, that the Crates of Pergamus, whose work on the won- ders of various countries is quoted by Pliny {H. N. vii. 2) and Aelian {H. A. xvii. 9), was a diflferent person. The fragments of his works are collected by C. F. Wegener {De Aula Attalica Litt. Artinmqiie Fautrice., Havn. 1836, 8vo.) There is also one epigram by him in the Greek Anthology (ii. 3, Bnuick and Jacobs) upon Chocrilus. This epigram is assigned to Crates on the authority of its title, KpaTTjTos ypa^fxariKov. But Diogenes Liiertius mentions an epigrammatic poet of the name, as distinct from the grammarian. (Suidas, s.vw Kparris,' ApiaTapxos ; 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 Horn, passim; Plin. //. A^. iv. 12 ; Wolf, Proleg. in Horn. Ii.; Thiersch, Ueber das Zeitalter und Vaierland des Horner^ pp. 19 — 64 ; Lersch, Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten^ i. pp. 67, 69—72, 112, ii. 148, 243; Fabric. DVil. Graec i. pp. 318, 509, iii. p. 558 ; Clinton, Fast, Hell iiL pp. 528, 529.) [P. S.]
 * 05v(T(Teias, in nine books, by which we are pro-