CRATES, of Athens, an Athenian actor and author of comedies of the 5th century b.c. He acted in the comedies of Cratinus; and his own pieces are distinguished chiefly, first, by the fact that they did not depend for their interest upon political references, and secondly, by the fact that he introduced drunkards on the stage,—a class of characters that had never appeared there before, although very frequently after his time.

CRATES, of Mallus in Cilicia, a Greek grammarian and Stoic philosopher of the 2d century b.c., was leader of the literary school and head of the library of Pergamus. Almost the only event of his life with which we are acquainted is the visit which he made to Rome about 157 b.c. as ambassador of Attalus IL, king of Pergamus, and which is said to have given an impulse to the study of Latin grammar. Crates wrote many works —commentaries on the Theogony, Euripides, and Aristophanes, a treatise on the Attic dialect, and works on agriculture and geography,—but some suppose the geographer to have been a different person....