Crantor

Crantor was a Greek philosopher of the Old Academy, born probably about the middle of the 4th century BC, at Soli in Cilicia.

He was a fellow-pupil of Polemo in the school of Xenocrates at Athens, and was the first commentator on Plato. He is said to have written some poems which he sealed up and deposited in the temple of Athens at Soli (Diog. Laërtius iv. 5. 25).

Of his celebrated work On Grief, a letter of condolence to his friend Hippocles on the death of his children, numerous extracts have been preserved in Plutarch's Consolatio ad Apollonium and in the De consolatione of Cicero, who speaks of it (Acad. ~i. 44. 135) in the highest terms (aureolus et ad verbum ediscendus). Crantor paid especial attention to ethics, and arranged "good" things in the following order--virtue, health, pleasure, riches.

Crantor the centaur

Crantor was also a Lapith who was killed by the centaur Demoleon in the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs that followed Pirithous' wedding, the rape of Pirithous' bride, Hippodamia, and the execution of her rapist, the centaur Eurytus. Demoleon fatally wounded Crantor after he tore off Crantor's chest and left shoulder with a tree trunk that Demoleon had thrown at Theseus, who ducked out of the way. The minor planet 83982 Crantor bears his name.

References

• Georg Friedrich Kayser, De Crantore Academico (1841)
• M. H. E. Meier, Opuscula academica, ii. (1863)
• Franz Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, i. (1891), p. 118
• Minor Planet Circular citation for (83982) Crantor

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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