Crates - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

CRATES, Athenian actor and author of comedies, flourished about 470 B.C. He was regarded as the founder of Greek comedy proper, since he abandoned political lampoons on individuals, and introduced more general subjects and a well-developed plot (Aristotle, Poetica, 5). He is stated to have been the first to represent the drunkard on the stage (Aristophanes, Knights, 37 ff.). Fragments in Meineke, Poetarum Comicorum Graecorum fragmenta,