See Plutarch's _Life_; also CAESAR, GAIUS JULIUS; POMPEY; ROME: _History_, II. "The Republic."
CRATER, the cavity at the mouth of a volcanic duct, usually funnel-shaped or presenting the form of a bowl, whence the name, from the Gr. [Greek: kratêr], a bowl. A volcanic hill may have a single crater at, or near, its summit, or it may have several minor craters on its flanks: the latter are sometimes called "adventitious craters" or "craterlets." Much of the loose ejected material, falling in the neighbourhood of the vent, rolls down the inner wall of the crater, and thus produces a stratification with an inward dip. The crater in an active volcano is kept open by intermittent explosions, but in a volcano which has become dormant or extinct the vent may become plugged, and the bowl-shaped cavity may subsequently be filled with water, forming a crater-lake, or as it is called in the Eifel a _Maar_. In some basaltic cones, like those of the Sandwich Islands, the crater may be a broad shallow pit, having almost perpendicular walls, with horizontal stratification. Such hollows are consequently called pit-craters. The name _caldera_ (Sp. for cauldron) was suggested for such pits by Capt. C. E. Dutton, who regarded them as having been formed by subsidence of the walls. The term caldera is often applied to bowl-shaped craters in Spanish-speaking countries. (See VOLCANO.)
CRATES, Athenian actor and author of comedies, flourished about 470 B.C. He was regarded as the founder of Greek comedy proper, since he abandoned political lampoons on individuals, and introduced more general subjects and a well-developed plot (Aristotle, _Poëtica_, 5). He is stated to have been the first to represent the drunkard on the stage (Aristophanes, _Knights_, 37 ff.).
Fragments in Meineke, _Poëtarum Comicorum Graecorum fragmenta_, i.
CRATES, the name of two Greek philosophers.
1. CRATES, of Athens, successor of Polemo as leader of the Old Academy.
2. CRATES, of Thebes, a Cynic philosopher of the latter half of the 4th century. He was the famous pupil of Diogenes, and the last great representative of Cynicism. It is said that he lost his ample fortune owing to the Macedonian invasion, but a more probable story is that he sacrificed it in accordance with his principles, directing the banker, to whom he entrusted it, to give it to his sons if they should prove fools, but to the poor if his sons should prove philosophers. He gave up his life to the attainment of virtue and the propagation of ascetic self-control. His habit of entering houses for this purpose, uninvited, earned him the nickname [Greek: Thyrepanoiktês] ("Door-opener"). His marriage with Hipparchia, daughter of a wealthy Thracian family, was in curious contrast to the prosaic character of his life. Attracted by the nobility of his character and undeterred by his poverty and ugliness, she insisted on becoming his wife in defiance of her father's commands. The date of his death is unknown, though he seems to have lived into the 3rd century. His writings were few. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he was the author of a number of letters on philosophical subjects; but those extant under the name of Crates (R. Hercher, _Epistolographi Graeci_, 1873) are, spurious, the work of later rhetoricians. Diogenes Laërtius credits him with a short poem, [Greek: Paignia], and several philosophic tragedies. Plutarch's life of Crates is lost. The great importance of Crates' work is that he formed the link between Cynicism and the Stoics, Zeno of Citium being his pupil.