Metrocles: Crates the Cynic
Table of Contents
1 Metrocles was:
- the brother of Hipparchia
- a pupil of Theophrastus
He had profited so little by his instructions, that he fell into despondency, and shut himself up in his house, intending to starve himself to death.
Crates heard of it and came to him, having been sent for.
He ate a number of lupins, on purpose, to persuade him by arguments that he had done no harm; for that it was not to be expected that a man should not indulge his natural inclinations and habits; and he comforted him by showing him that he, in a similar case, would certainly have behaved in a similar manner.
After that, he became a pupil of Crates, and a man of great eminence as a philosopher.
2 He burnt all his writings, as Hecaton tells us in the first book of his Apophthegms, and said:— These are the phantoms of infernal dreams;
As if he meant that they were all nonsense. But some say that it was the notes which he had taken of the lectures of Theophrastus which he burnt, quoting the following verse:
Vulcan, draw near, ’tis Thetis asks your aid.
3 He used to say that some things could be bought with money, as for instance a house; and some with time and industry, as education; that wealth was mischievous, if a man did not use it properly.
4 He died at a great age, having suffocated himself.
5 His pupils were:
- Theombrotus and Cleomenes
- Demetrius of Alexandria, the son of Theombrotus
- Timarchus of Alexandria, the son of Cleomenes
- Echecles, of Ephesus
Not but what Echecles was also a pupil of Theombrotus; and Menedemus, of whom we shall speak hereafter, was his pupil. Menippus, of Sinope, too, was a very eminent person in his school.