Cratinus
Cratinus was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy.
Life
Cratinus won prizes for his plays on 27 known occasions, eight times at the City Dionysia, first probably in the mid-to-late 450s BCE, and three times at the Lenaia, first probably in the early 430s. He was still competing in 423 BC, when his Pytine took the prize at the City Dionysia; he died shortly thereafter, at a very advanced age, about 97 years.Little is known of his personal history. His father's name was Callimedes, and he himself was a taxiarch. The Suda accuses Cratinus of immorality, excessive cowardice, and habitual intemperance. His contemporaries offer no corroboration, except for the third charge, which is sustained by many passages of Aristophanes and other writers. They also refer the "Confession of Cratinus", which Cratinus himself seems to have treated the subject in a very amusing way, especially in his Pytine.
That he was related to the 4th-century comic poet Cratinus Junior is a reasonable hypothesis but cannot be proven.
Works
Cratinus was regarded as one of the three great masters of Athenian Old Comedy. Although his poetry is several times described as relatively graceless, harsh, and crudely abusive, his plays continued to be read and studied in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He wrote 21 comedies. They were chiefly distinguished by their direct and vigorous political satire. 514 fragments of his comedies survive, along with 29 titles. His most famous play is the Pytine.''Pytine''
The Pytine was Cratinus' most famous play. A grammarian describes the background of the play as follows: In 424 BC, Aristophanes produced The Knights, 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 to quench the thirst of which he was perishing" Soon after that play, Cratinus responded by producing a play called Pytine in 423 BC, which defeated the Connus of Ameipsias and The Clouds of Aristophanes, which was produced in the same year.Other plays
In Grenfell and Hunt's Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iv., containing a further instalment of their edition of the Behnesa papyri discovered by them in 1896–1897, one of the greatest curiosities is a scrap of paper bearing the argument of a play by Cratinus, the Dionysalexandros, aimed against Pericles; and the epitome reveals something of its wit and point. Other plays of Cratinus include- Archilochoi
- Boukoloi
- Bousiris
- Deliades
- Didaskaliai
- Drapetides
- Empipramenoi or Idaioi
- Euneidai
- Thrattai
- Kleoboulinai
- Lakones
- Malthakoi
- Nemesis
- Nomoi
- Odysseis
- Panoptai
- Ploutoi
- Pylaia
- Satyroi, won 2nd prize at the Lenaea of 424 BC
- Seriphioi
- Trophonios
- Cheimazomenoi, won 2nd prize at Lenaea of 425 BC
- Cheirones
- Horai