Crates of Mallus - Works

Works

Crates made a strong distinction between criticism and grammar, the latter of which he regarded as subordinate to the former. A critic, according to Crates, should investigate everything which could throw light upon literature; the grammarian was only to apply the rules of language to clear up the meaning of particular passages, and to settle the text, prosody, accentuation, etc. From this part of his system, Crates derived the surname of Kritikos.

Like Aristarchus of Samothrace, Crates gave the greatest attention to the works of Homer, from his labours upon which he was also surnamed Homerikos. He wrote a commentary on the Iliad and Odyssey in nine books. Some fragments of this commentary are preserved by the scholiasts and other ancient writers. His principles were opposed to those of Aristarchus, who was the leader of the Alexandrian school. Crates was the chief representative of the allegorical theory of exegesis, and maintained that Homer intended to express scientific or philosophical truths in the form of poetry.

Besides his work on Homer, Crates wrote commentaries on the Theogony of Hesiod, on Euripides, on Aristophanes, and probably on other ancient authors; a work on the Attic dialect; and works on geography, natural history, and agriculture, of all of which only a few fragments exist.