Crates (comic poet)

Crates (Greek: Κράτης) was an Athenian Old Comic poet, who was victorious three times at the City Dionysia, first probably in 450 BC.[1] His career had apparently ended by 424 BC, when Aristophanes portrays him in The Knights as a figure from the past.[2] Before he began writing, he was an actor for Cratinus.[3]

Aristotle claims in the Poetics that Crates was the first comic poet to create complete plots, rather than personal abuse, and his surviving fragments support this.[2] His style of comedy was apparently therefore rather different from that of Aristophanes' more political and topical works,[2] and by the end of the fourth century BC this was the dominant style of comedy.[4] He was also supposedly the first Athenian comic poet to write a drunk character.[3]

Sixty fragments (four uncertain) survive.[3] According to the Suda[5] and an anonymous writer on comedy,[6] he wrote seven plays; another source[7] says eight.[3] Eleven titles are attributed to him:

• Geitones ("Neighbours")[5]
• Eortai ("Feasts")[8]
• Heroes ("Heroes")[5]
• Theria ("Wild Beasts")[5]
• Lamia ("Lamia")[5]
• Metoikoi ("Metics")[9]
• Paidiai ("Games")[10]
• Pedetai ("Men In Chains")[5]
• Rhetores ("Politicians")[11]
• Samioi ("The Samians")[5]
• Tolmai ("Daring Deeds")[12]

Of these titles, Feasts may be a mistake caused by confusion with Plato Comicus's play of that name;[13] the Men in Chains might be a mistake for Games, by confusion with Callias' Men in Chains;[14] and the Politicians, attested in only one fragment, might be a mistake for Heroes or Neighbours.[15] Crates' Metics is attested only in a single fragment preserved in the Etymologicum Genuinum; other plays of that name by Pherecrates and Plato Comicus are attested, and it is unclear whether all three are separate works.[14]

References

1. Dover 2012.
2. Storey 2011, p. 200.
3. Nesselrath 2006.
4. Storey 2011, p. xxxi.
5. Crates, Test. 1 K-A
6. Crates, Test. 2 K-A
7. Crates, Test. 4 K-A
8. Crates fr.40–41 K-A
9. Crates fr.26 K-A
10. Crates fr.27–29 K-A
11. Crates fr.30 K-A
12. Crates, fr.36–42 K-A
13. Storey 2011, p. 213.
14. Storey 2011, p. 223.
15. Storey 2011, p. 225.

Works cited

• Dover, Kenneth James (2012). "Crates (1)". Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Kassel, Rudolf; Austin, Colin, eds. (1983). Poetae Comici Graeci. Vol. IV Aristophon - Crobylus. de Gruyter.
• Nesselrath, Heinz-Günther (2006). "Crates [1]". Brill's New Pauly. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e622160.
• Storey, Ian C. (2011). Fragments of Old Comedy. Vol. I: Alcaeus to Diocles. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.