Crates

▪ Greek actor and author

died before 424 BC, Athens, Greece

      ancient Greek actor and author of comedies. He is considered one of the lesser poets of Attic Old Comedy; his contemporaries were Cratinus and Aristophanes.

      Crates acted in comedies by Cratinus before he turned to writing. He won three victories at the theatrical contests held as part of the Great Dionysia. About 60 fragments of his work have survived. Of the approximately 15 known titles, the following are certainly authentic: Neighbours, Dionysus, Heroes, Animals, Lamia, Games, Public Speakers, Samians, and Acts of Violence. Crates was dead by the time Aristophanes praised him in Knights (424 BC). Aristotle (in Poetics) credited him with rejecting personal invective in favour of plots based on what is normal or probable.

      Crates drew from Doric comedy not only anapestic tetrameter verse (see anapest) but traditional figures such as the drunk, the parasite, and the foreign doctor. Fragments of Beasts show that the play featured animals that object to being eaten by humans and illuminated the contrast between an easy life and a natural life.

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