PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK A POET QUOTED IN A WEEK: 1 CRATES OF THEBES “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY 1. Here, in a wall painting at the Villa Farnesina in Rome, Crates has been depicted with staff and his Cynic’s satchel, the pera. He is being approached by Hipparchia, who is bearing her possessions according to the Greek custom of a bride approaching her bridegroom. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:CRATES OF THEBES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK A WEEK: A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra PEOPLE OF firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of A WEEK navigation by those who have never been out of sight of land. They must not yield wheat and potatoes, but must themselves be the unconstrained and natural harvest of their author’s lives. “What I have learned is mine; I’ve had my thought, And me the Muses noble truths have taught.” We do not learn much from learned books, but from true, sincere, human books, from frank and honest biographies. The life of a good man will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the observance, and our lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense of virtue of some kind. CRATES OF THEBES HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:CRATES OF THEBES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 365 BCE At about this point Crates (Κράτης) was born in Thebes, a son of Ascondus and heir to a large fortune. He would become a student of Diogenes of Sinope, and a Cynic, but he was also described as being a student of Bryson the Achaean, and of Stilpo. He was the teacher of Zeno of Citium, the first Stoic. His other pupils included Metrocles, Monimus, Menippus, Cleomenes, Theombrotus, and Crates’s brother Pasicles. He may also have taught Cleanthes, Zeno’s successor as head of the Stoic school. He may have been deformed, with a lame leg and hunched shoulders. He acquired the nickname “Door-Opener” (θυρεπανοίκτης) because he could enter any house and be received gladly and with honor: He used to enter the houses of his friends, without being invited or otherwise called, in order to reconcile members of a family, even if it was apparent that they were deeply at odds. He would not reprove them harshly, but in a soothing way, in a manner which was non-accusatory towards those whom he was correcting, because he wished to be of service to them as well as to those who were just listening. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Crates of Thebes “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:CRATES OF THEBES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 307 BCE Crates was apparently in Thebes when Demetrius Phalereus was exiled there. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Crates of Thebes HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:CRATES OF THEBES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 285 BCE Between this year and 246 BCE Pharaoh Ptolemy II would widen the initial “Suez Canal” that had been dug under the orders of Pharaoh Necho II. EGYPT By this point Crates of Thebes had died of old age, and was buried in Boeotia. (We do not have a specific date of death, but since he was said to be aged at the point of his death we are confident that he lived for a considerable period into the 3d Century BCE.) Plutarch’s extended life of Crates is, unfortunately, lost. What survives of the Plutarch account is merely the following fragment: But Crates with only his wallet and tattered cloak laughed out his life jocosely, as if he had been always at a festival. He had not been one of these “publish or perish” people, and his writings had been few. Various fragments of his teachings have survived including a description of the ideal Cynic state. According to Diogenes Laërtius he had been the author of a number of letters on philosophical subjects; however, the corpus of writings that still exists under his name actually is made up of attributions concocted by rhetoricians of the 1st Century CE, and is entirely spurious. One of his poems parodied a famous hymn to the Muses written by Solon: whereas Solon had opted for prosperity, reputation, and “justly acquired possessions,” Crates offered typically Cynic motivations: Glorious children of Memory and Olympian Zeus, Muses of Pieria, listen to my prayer! Give me without ceasing food for my belly Which had always made my life frugal and free from slavery.... Make me useful to my friends, rather than agreeable. As for money, I do not wish to amass conspicuous wealth, But only seek the wealth of the beetle or the maintenance of the ant; Nay, I desire to possess justice and to collect riches That are easily carried, easily acquired, and are of great avail to virtue. If I may but win these, I will propitiate Hermes and the holy Muses, Not with costly dainties, but with pious virtues. There are also several fragments surviving of a poem describing the ideal Cynic state, which Crates began by parodying Homer’s description of Crete: There is a city Pera2 in the midst of wine-dark Tuphos,3 Fair and fruitful, filthy all about, possessing nothing, Into which no foolish parasite ever sails, Nor any playboy who delights in a whore’s ass, But it produces thyme, garlic, figs, and bread, For which the citizens do not war with each other, Nor do they possess arms, to get cash or fame. 2. In Greek, Pera refers not to a population center but to the beggar’s wallet carried by every Cynic. 3. This Greek term tuphos is one of the first known Cynic deployments of such a term, literally indicating mist or smoke. The term was employed by Cynics in description of the mental confusion in which most people are encased. The Cynics sought to dispel this mist so that things would be seen as they were. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:CRATES OF THEBES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK Diogenes Laërtius also credited Crates with several philosophic tragedies. He preserved several different accounts of a story that Crates gave his fortune to the citizens of Thebes after seeing the beggar king Telephus in a tragedy, or that he placed his money in the hands of a banker with the instruction that it should be passed on to his sons unless they too were able to make of themselves philosophers — in which case these funds should be distributed among the poor. Subsequent to this he was said to have led a life of poverty on the streets of Athens. He taught a simple asceticism, which seems to have been milder than that of his predecessor Diogenes: And therefore Crates replied to the man who asked, “What will be in it for me after I become a philosopher?” “You will be able,” he said, “to open your wallet easily and with your hand scoop out and dispense lavishly instead of, as you do now, squirming and hesitating and trembling like those with paralyzed hands. Rather, if the wallet is full, that is how you will view it; and if you see that it is empty, you will not be distressed. And once you have elected to use the money, you will easily be able to do so; and if you have none, you will not yearn for it, but you will live satisfied with what you have, not desiring what you do not have nor displeased with whatever comes your way.” Hipparchia of Maroneia, a sister of Metrocles, one of Crates’s students, came to him as wife and then lived in the same manner. They produced at least two children, a girl and a boy, and Crates is said to have taught his son Pasicles about sex by taking him into a brothel, and to have allowed his daughter to enter into a month’s trial marriage with her potential suitors. A WEEK: A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those who have never been out of sight of land. They must not yield wheat and potatoes, but must themselves be the unconstrained and natural harvest of their author’s lives. “What I have learned is mine; I’ve had my thought, And me the Muses noble truths have taught.” We do not learn much from learned books, but from true, sincere, human books, from frank and honest biographies. The life of a good man will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the observance, and our lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense of virtue of some kind. CRATES OF THEBES HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:CRATES OF THEBES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK Although it has been suggested that Thoreau may have gotten the above snippet out of Volume 34 of Bohn’s Classical Library in Waldo Emerson’s library, entitled ANTHOLOGIA GRAECIA. THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY: AS SELECTED FOR THE USE OF WESTMINSTER, ETON, AND OTHER PUBLIC SCHOOLS translated by George Burges (London: H.G.