Cratīnus
（
Κρατῖνος).
1.
An Athenian comic poet, born in B.C. 519. It was not till late in life that he directed his
attention to comic compositions. The first piece of his on record is the
Ἀρχίλοχοι, which was represented about B.C. 448, at which time he
was in his seventy-first year. In this play, according to Plutarch (
Cimon), he
makes mention of the celebrated Cimon, who had died the preceding year, B.C. 449; and from
the language employed by the poet it may be inferred that he was on terms of close intimacy
with the Athenian general. Soon after this, comedy became so licentious and virulent in its
personalities that the magistracy were obliged to interfere. A decree was passed, B.C. 440,
prohibiting the exhibitions of comedy; which law continued in force only during that year and
the two following, being repealed in the archonship of Euthymenes. Three victories of
Cratinus stand recorded after the recommencement of comic performances. With the
Χειμαζόμενοι he was second, B.C. 425 (
Argum.
Acharn.), when the
Ἀχαρνεῖς of
Aristophanes won the prize, and the third place was adjudged to the
Νουμηνίαι of Eupolis. In the succeeding year he was again second with the
Σάτυροι, and Aristophanes again first with the
Ἱππεῖς (
Argum. Equit.). In a parabasis of this play
that young rival makes mention of Cratinus; where, having noticed his former successes, he
insinuates, under the cloak of an equivocal piety, that the veteran was becoming doting and
superannuated. The old man, now in his ninety-fifth year, indignant at this insidious attack,
exerted his remaining vigour, and composed, against the contests of the approaching season, a
comedy entitled
Πυτίνη, or
The Flagon, which
turned upon the accusations brought against him by Aristophanes. The aged dramatist had a
complete triumph (
Argum. Nub.). He was first; while his humbled antagonist was
vanquished also by Ameipsias with the
Κόννος, though the
play of Aristophanes was the favourite
Nubes. Notwithstanding his notorious
intemperance, Cratinus lived to an extreme old age, dying B.C. 422, in his ninety-seventh
year. Aristophanes alludes to the excesses of Cratinus in a passage of the
Equites (v. 526 foll.). In the
Pax, he humorously ascribes the
jovial old poet's death to a shock on seeing a cask of wine staved and lost. Cratinus himself
made no scruple of acknowledging his failing (Schol.
in Pac. 703). Horace,
also, opens one of his Epistles (i. 19) with a maxim of the comedian's, in due accordance
with his practice. The titles of thirty-eight of the comedies of Cratinus have been
collected. His style was bold and animated (
Pers. i. 123), and
like his younger brethren, Eupolis and Aristophanes, he fearlessly and unsparingly directed
his satire against the iniquitous public officer and the profligate of private life. The
fragments of Cratinus may be found in Meineke,
Fragmenta Comicorum
Graecorum (Berlin, 1840).
2.
There was also a younger Cratinus, a poet of the New Comedy and contemporary of Plato.
