Cratippus ( grc, Κράτιππος; fl. 375 BC) was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
. There are only three or four references to him in ancient literature, and his importance derives from his being identified by several scholars (e.g.
Blass) with the author of the historical fragment discovered by Grenfell and Hunt. The fragment itself was published in
''Oxyrhynchus Papyri'', vol. v, and is known as the ''
Hellenica Oxyrhynchia
''Hellenica Oxyrhynchia'' is an Ancient Greek history of classical Greece in the late 5th and early 4th centuries BCE, of which papyrus fragments were unearthed at Oxyrhynchus, in Egypt. The author, whose name is not recorded in the surviving fragm ...
''. It may be regarded as a fairly certain inference from a passage in
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
(', p. 345 E, ed. Bernardakis, ii. p. 455) that he was an
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
writer, intermediate in date between
Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientifi ...
and
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, wikt:Ξενοφῶν, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Anci ...
, and that his work continued the narrative of Thucydides, from the point at which the latter historian stopped (410 BC) down to the
Battle of Cnidus
The Battle of Cnidus ( gr, Ναυμαχία της Κνίδου) was a military operation conducted in 394 BC by the Achaemenid Empire against the Spartan naval fleet during the Corinthian War. A fleet under the joint command of Pharnabazus and ...
.
A recent edition of the surviving papyrus fragments is V. Bartoletti, ''Hellenica Oxyrhynchia'' (Leipzig, 1959), which includes a bibliography.
Further reading
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Classical-era Greek historians
Ancient Athenian historians
4th-century BC Athenians
4th-century BC historians
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