The New International Encyclopædia/Crates (poet)

CRATES, krā′-tēz (Lat., from Gk. Κράτης, Kratēs). An Athenian comic poet of the fifth century B.C. He began his career as an actor in Cratinus's plays, and won his first victory in B.C. 449. Aristotle says that he was the first to give up personal satire in comedy; he likewise made the innovation of introducing a drunken character on the stage. We have the titles of fifteen plays and scanty fragments. Consult Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1880).