Cratevas

(Κρατεύας), a Greek herbalist (π̔ιζοτόμος) who lived about the beginning of the first century B. C., as he gave the name Mithridatia to a plant in honour of Mithridates. (Plin. H. N. 25.26.) He is frequently quoted by Pliny and Dioscorides, and is mentioned by Galen (De Simplic. Medicam. Temperam. ac Facult. vi. prooem. vol. xi. pp. 795, 797; Comment. in Hippocr. "De Nat. Hom." 2.6, vol. xv. p. 134; De Antid. 1.2, vol. xiv. p. 7), among the eminent writers on Materia Medica. Some persons have supposed that Cratevas lived in the fifth and fourth centuries B. C., because one of the spurious letters that go under the name of Hippocrates (Hippocr. Opera, vol. iii. p. 790) is addressed to a person of that name; but as no mention of the contemporary of Hippocrates is found in any other passage, these spurious letters are hardly sufficient to prove his existence. [W.A.G]