CRATIPPUS, a Peripatetic philosopher, belonging to Mytilene, was contemporary with Cicero, whose son he taught at Athens, and by whom he is praised in the Do Officiis as the greatest of his school. He was also the friend of Pompey, whose flight after the battle of Pharsalia he shared, for the purpose, it is said, of convincing him of the justice of providence; and Brutus, while at Athens after the assassination of Caesar, attended his lectures. The only work attributed to Cratippus is a treatise on divination. His view of the subject is given by Cicero in the De Divinatione (i. 32). He seems to have held that, while motion, sense, and appetite cannot exist apart from the body, thought reaches its greatest power when most free from bodily influence, and that divination is due to the direct action of the divine mind on that faculty of the human soul which is not dependent on the body.

CRATIPPUS, a contemporary of Thucydides, to whose history he made considerable additions, filling in omissions and continuing it to the time of Conon.