Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Crates, son of Ascondas, a Theban. He too was one of the distinguished pupils of the Dog. But Hippobotus says that he was not a pupil of Diogenes, but of Bryson the Achaean. The following *Jests* of his are in circulation: "There is a city, Pera, in the midst of wine-dark folly, fair and fertile, surrounded by filth, possessing nothing; into which sails no foolish man who is a parasite, nor lecher delighting in the buttocks of a harlot; but it bears thyme and garlic and figs and loaves, over which they do not wage war against one another; they possess no arms for the sake of petty coin, nor for fame."

​There is also the celebrated *Day-book*, which runs as follows: "Set down for a cook ten minas, for a doctor a drachma, for a flatterer five talents, for a counsellor smoke, for a courtesan a talent, for a philosopher three obols." He was also called the Door-opener, because of his entering every house and admonishing people. This too is his: "These things are mine, whatever I learned and meditated upon, and what noble things I came to know with the Muses; but the many and rich possessions vanity has snatched away." And that what accrued to him from philosophy was: "A choenix of lupines, and not to care for anything." That saying too of his is preserved: "Hunger quenches love, or if not, time; but if you cannot use these, a noose."

​He flourished around the hundred and thirteenth Olympiad. Antisthenes in the *Successions* says that he, having seen Telephus in a certain tragedy carrying a small basket and otherwise in a wretched state, rushed headlong into the Cynic philosophy; and having turned his property into silver—for he was of distinguished family—and collected nearly two hundred talents, he distributed them to the citizens. And he practised philosophy so rigorously that even Philemon the comic poet mentions him. At any rate, he says: "And in summer he wore a thick woollen cloak, so as to be like Crates, but in winter a rag." Diocles says that Diogenes persuaded him to let his land run wild as sheep-pasture, and if there was any silver, to fling it into the sea.

​And the house of Crates, he says, was * * by Alexander, and that of Hipparchia by Philip. He frequently chased away with his staff those of his relatives who approached him and tried to dissuade him, and he was stout-hearted. Demetrius of Magnesia says that he deposited his money with a certain banker, agreeing that if his sons should become ordinary citizens, he was to restore it to them; but if they should become philosophers, he was to distribute it to the people; for they would need nothing if they were philosophers. Eratosthenes says that when a son, Pasicles by name, was born to him by Hipparchia, of whom we shall speak, as soon as he emerged from youth, Crates brought him to a brothel girl and said that this was his paternal wedding.