A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

886 CRATINUS.
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,
those spurious letters are hardly sufficient to prove
his existence. [W. A. G.]
CRATI'NUS (KparhVos), Comic poets. 1.
One of the most celebrated Athenian comic poets
of the old comedy, the rise and complete perfection
of which he witnessed during a life of 97 years.
The dates of his birth and death can be ascertained
with tolerable certainty from the following circumstances:-In the year 424 B. c., Aristophanes
exhibited his Knqiglds, in which he described Cratinus as a drivelling old man, wandering about
with his crown withered, and so utterly neglected
by his former admirers that he could not even
procure wherewithal to quench the thirst of which
he was perishing. (Equit. 531-534.) This
attack roused Cratinus to put forth all his remaining strength in the play entitled IvUriUv' (the
Flagon), which was exhibited the next year, and
with which he carried away the first prize above
the Connus of Ameipsias and the Clouds of Aristophanes. (Arg. Nub.) Now Lucian says that
the HlTwiV was the last play of Cratinus, and that
he did not long survive his victory. (Alacrob. 25.)
Aristophanes also, in the Peace, which was acted
in 419 B. C., says that Cratinus died 3'O1 ol Adicoves EVdaXov. (Pax, 700, 701.) A doubt has
been raised as to what invasion Aristophanes
meant. He cannot refer to any of the great invasions mentioned by Thucydides, and we are
therefore compelled to suppose some irruption of a
part of the Lacedaemonian army into Attica at the
time when the armistice, which was made shortly
before the negotiations for the fifty years' truce,
was broken. (B. c. 422.) Now Lucian says (1. c.)
that Cratinus lived 97 years. Thus his birth
would fall in B. c. 519.
If we may trust the grammarians and chronographers, Cratinus did not begin his dramatic
career till he was far advanced in life. According
to an Anonymous writer on Comedy (p. xxix), he
gained his first victory after the 85th Olympiad,
that is, later than B. c. 437, and when he was
more than 80 years old. This date is suspicious in
itself, and is falsified by circumstantial evidence.
For example, in one fragment he blames the tardiness of Pericles in completing the long walls
which we know to have been finished in B. c. 451,
and there are a few other fragments which evidently belong to an earlier period than the 85th
Olympiad. Again, Crates the comic poet acted the
plays of Cratinus before he began to write himself;
but Crates began to write in B. c. 449-448. We
can therefore have no hesitation in preferring the
date of Eusebius (Chron. s. a. 01. 81. 3; Syncell.
p. 339), although he is manifestly wrong in joining the name of Plato with that of Cratinus. According to this testimony, Cratinus began to exhibit in B. c. 454-453, in about the 66th year of
his age.
Of his personal history very little is known.
His father's name was Callimedes, and he himself
was taxiarch of the evXJ O ies's. (Suid. s. vv.
Kpanrivos, 'E retoi sesXovepos.) In the latter
passage he is charged with excessive cowardice.

CRATINUS.
Of the charges which Suidas brings against the
moral character of Cratinus, one is unsupported by
any other testimony, though, if it had been true,
it is not likely that Aristophanes would have been
silent upon it. Probably Suidas was misled by a
passage of Aristophanes (Acharn. 849, 850) which
refers to another Cratinus, a lyric poet. (Schol.
1. c.) The other charge which Suidas brings against
Cratinus, that of habitual intemperance, is sustained by many passages of Aristophanes and
other writers, as well as by the confession of Cratinus himself, who appears to have treated the
subject in a very amusing way, especially in his
TIvTinv. (See further on this point Meineke,
Hist. Crit. Conm. Graec. pp. 47-49.)
Cratinus exhibited twenty-one plays and gained
nine victories (Suid. s. v.; Eudoc. p. 271; Anon.
de Com. p. xxix), and that 7raaJ1pet, according
to the Scholiast on Aristophanes. (Equit. 528.)
Cratinus was undoubtedly the poet of the old
comedy. He gave it its peculiar character, and he
did not, like Aristophanes, live to see its decline.
Before his time the comic poets had aimed at little
beyond exciting the laughter of their audience: it
was Cratinus who first made comedy a terrible
weapon of personal attack, and the comic poet a
severe censor of public and private vice. An
anonymous ancient writer says, that to the pleasing
in comedy Cratinus added the useful, by accusing
evil-doers and punishing them with comedy as
with a public scourge. (Anon. de Com. p. xxxii.)
He did not even, like Aristophanes, in such attacks
unite mirth with satire, but, as an ancient writer
says, he hurled his reproaches in the plainest form
at the bare heads of the offenders. (Platonius, de
Comn. p. xxvii.; Christodor. Ecphrasis, v. 357;
Persius, Sat. i. 123.) Still, like Aristophanes
with respect to Sophocles, he sometimes bestowed
the highest praise, as upon Cimon. (Plut. Cim.
10.) Pericles, on the other hand, was the object
of his most persevering and vehement abuse.
It is proper here to state what is known of the
circumstances under which Cratinus and his followers were permitted to assume this license of
attacking institutions and individuals openly and
by name. It evidently arose out of the close connexion which exists in nature between mirth and
satire. While looking for subjects which could be
put in a ridiculous point of view, the poet naturally
fell upon the follies and vices of his countrymen.
The free constitution of Athens inspired him with
courage to attack the offenders, and secured for
him protection from their resentment. And accordingly we find, that the political freedom of
Athens and this license of her comic poets rose
and fell together. Nay, if we are to believe
Cicero, the law itself granted them impunity. (De
Repub. iv. 10: " apud quos [Graecos] fuit etiam
lege concessum, ut quod vellet comoedia de quo
vellet nominatim diceret.") The same thing is stated, though not so distinctly,by Themistius. (Orat.
viii. p. 110, b.) This flourishing period lasted from
the establishment of the Athenian power after
the Persian war down to the end of the Peloponnesian war, or perhaps a few years later (about
a. c. 460-393). The exercise of this license,
however, was not altogether unopposed. In addition to what could be done personally by such
men as Cleon and Alcibiades, the law itself interfered on more than one occasion. In the
archonship of Morychides (B. c. 440-439), a law