Crates of Athens
Who was Crates of Athens?
3rd-century BC Greek Platonist philosopher
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Crates of Athens (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Crates of Athens was a Greek philosopher in the third century BC who followed the Platonic tradition and eventually led the Academy that Plato founded in Athens. He died between 268 and 264 BC, during the early Hellenistic period when Greek philosophy was changing and spreading throughout the Mediterranean. As a Platonist, Crates belonged to a school that had already produced many important thinkers in Western history, and he had to both preserve and interpret its complex philosophical heritage.
Before Fame
We don't know much about the early life of Crates of Athens, including the details of his birth or his education before he joined the Academy. He was likely born around 400 BC, during the last years of classical Athens, when the city was dealing with the aftermath of its loss in the Peloponnesian War and the execution of Socrates in 399 BC. These events had a huge impact on the philosophical culture Crates grew up in, as Plato and his followers worked to defend and organize rational thinking amidst political chaos and public distrust of philosophy.
Crates eventually joined the Academy, the school Plato founded near Athens, and moved up through the ranks as the institution was defining its identity and methods. His predecessor as head of the school was Polemon, who probably taught Crates and helped shape his philosophical beliefs. Moving from student to head of the school was a natural step in the Academy's culture of mentorship and succession.
Key Achievements
- Served as scholarch of the Old Academy, guiding the institution founded by Plato during a critical transitional period in Greek philosophy
- Maintained the Platonic tradition in Athens during the early Hellenistic period when rival schools such as Stoicism and Epicureanism were rapidly gaining influence
- Mentored Arcesilaus, who would go on to transform the Academy into a center of philosophical skepticism and profoundly alter the trajectory of ancient philosophy
- Represented the final phase of the Old Academy, preserving its doctrinal character before the institution's direction changed fundamentally after his death
Did You Know?
- 01.Crates of Athens was the last scholarch of what scholars now call the Old Academy, meaning that after his death the institution entered a new phase marked by greater skepticism under Arcesilaus.
- 02.His death, dated between 268 and 264 BC, coincided with the early years of the Chremonidean War, an Athenian military uprising against Macedonian rule that deeply disrupted civic life in Athens.
- 03.Crates was a student of Polemon of Athens, continuing an unbroken chain of succession from Plato himself through Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon.
- 04.Unlike some of his contemporaries in rival schools, Crates represented a conservative strand of Platonism that sought to maintain continuity with the founder's doctrines rather than radically revising them.
- 05.After Crates died, Arcesilaus took over the Academy and steered it toward Academic Skepticism, a move so dramatic that historians treat Crates as the final representative of an older, more dogmatic Platonic tradition.