VII. He was also very fond of Sophocles, and especially of those passages where, according to one of the comic poets, he seemed to have had a Molossian hound for his colleague in composing his poems; and when there was, to use the expression of Phrynichus:—
No sweet or washy liquor, but purest Pramnian wine.
And he used to say that Homer was an epic Sophocles, and Sophocles a tragic Homer.
VIII. And he died when he was very old, of decline, having left behind him a great number of writings. And there is this epigram of ours upon him:—
Do you not hear, we’ve buried Polemo, Whom sickness, worst affliction of mankind Attacked, and bore off to the shades below; Yet Polemo lies not here, but Polemo’s body And that he did himself place here on earth, Prepared in soul to mount up to the skies.
I. Crates was the son of Antigenes, and of the Thriasian burgh, and a pupil and attached friend of Polemo. He was also his successor as president of his school.
II. And they benefited one another so much, that not only did they delight while alive in the same pursuits, but almost to their latest breath did they resemble one another, and even after they were both dead they shared the same tomb. In reference to which circumstance Antagoras has written an epigram on the pair, in which he expresses himself thus:—
Stranger, who passest by, relate that here The God-like Crates lies, and Polemo; Two men of kindred nobleness of mind; Out of whose holy mouths pure wisdom flowed, And they with upright lives did well display, The strength of all their principles and teaching.
And they say too that it was in reference to this that Arcesilaus, when he came over to them from Theophrastus, said that they were some gods, or else a remnant of the golden race; for they were not very fond of courting the people, but had a disposition in accordance with the saying of Dionysodorus the flute player, who is reported to have said, with great exultation and pride, that no one had ever heard his music in a trireme or at a fountain as they had heard Ismenius.
III. Antigonus relates that he used to be a messmate of Crantor, and that these philosophers and Arcesilaus lived together; and that Arcesilaus lived in Crantor’s house, but that Polemo and Crates lived in the house of one of the citizens, named Lysicles; and he says that Crates was, as I have already mentioned, greatly attached to Polemo, and so was Arcesilaus to Crantor.