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On this page: Cratinus – Creon – Crepida – Cresilas – Cretheus – Creusa – Critias – Cronus

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CRATINUS ——CRONUS.

His chief work was a comprehensive com­mentary, critical and exegetical, on Homer. In 167 B.C. he was sent by king Attains on an embassy to Rome. Here he broke his leg, and was thus forced to make a long stay. He used his enforced leisure in giving lec­tures, which gave the first impulse to the study of philology and literary criticism among the Romans. Only a few fragments of his works have survived.

Cratinus (Kratinds) was, with Eupfills and Arist6ph&nes, a chief representative of the Old Comedy at Athens. He was born in 520 b.c., and died in 423, thus flourishing in the age of Pericles, who was the special object of his attacks. He wrote twenty-one pieces, and gained the prize nine times. The last occasion on which he was victor was shortly before his death, and the defeated comedy was The Clouds of Aristophanes. Cratinus' play was the Pytlne or "Wine-flask," in which the poet courted the ridi­cule, of the public by confessing himself a hard drinker. His wit was brilliant, but more caustic than humorous. He may be regarded as the founder of political comedy. Only the titles and a few fragments of his plays have survived.

Cr&on (Krlori). (1) King of Corinth, and fatherof Glauce: see ARGONAUTs(conclusion).

(2) Son of Mgnoeceus, great-grandson of Pentheus, brother of liScaste, and father of Haemon and Menceceus (see articles under these names). He governed Thebes after Lalus' death until the coming of (Edlpus; and again after the fall of Etgocles until the latter's son, LaS-damas, came of age. (See anti­gone.)

(3) See amphi­tryon and hera­cles.

pericles (aftkr crestlas). (British Museum).

Criplda (Greek krlpls). A kind of sandal, bor­rowed by the Romans from the Greeks, and used originally by the Roman soldiers. It had a thick sole, was of the same shape for each foot, and had low leather sides with straps for fastening.

Cresllas (Kresllds), a Greek artist, born

at Cydonla in Crete, who flourished at Athens in the second half of the 5th cen-| tury B.C. Among his chief works may be mentioned: (1) a statue of PSricles, pro­bably the original of the extant portrait-statues of the great statesman ; (2) a statue of a man mortally wounded, in which the struggle between death and life was vividly portrayed: (3) the Wounded Amazon of Ephesus, a work in which he had to com­pete with Phidias and PSlyclitus. This is generally supposed to be the original of one of the several types of Wounded Amazons which have survived. Cresilas seems to have followed the tradition of Myron.

Cretheus (KrStheun). In Greek mythology, the son of jESlus and Enarete, the founder of Iolc6s, and by Tyro father of J5son, PhSres, and Amythaon. (See JCoLUS 1, and neleus.) Creusa (KrSousa). (1) See j£neas. (2) See glauce. (3) See ion 1.

CritlaB (KrUlds). An Athenian, a dis­ciple of Socr&tes and Gorgias of Leontinl. He was one of the most accomplished men of his time, and was distinguished as a poet and an orator. But he is best known as the chief of the Thirty Tyrants, in defence of whose cause against the Liberators he fell in 403 B.C. He was the author of several tragedies. Some fragments of his poems have survived, the largest being from his political elegies. He seems to have had the gift of expression, but to have written in a harsh style of composition.

Crdnus (KrdnSs). In Greek mythology, the youngest son of Ur&nus and Gsea, who mutilated and overthrew his father, and, with the assistance of his kinsfolk the Titans, made himself sovereign of the world. He took his sister Rhea to wife, and became by her father of Hestla, Deme-ter, Hera, Hades, Pfiseidon, and Zeus. But his mother prophesied that one of his chil­dren would overthrow him He accordingly swallowed them all except Zeus, whom Rhea saved by a stratagem. Zeus, when grown up, obtained the assistance of the Ocean-nymph Thetis in making Cronus dis­gorge his children, and then, with the help of his kinsfolk, overpowered Cronus and the Titans. According to one version of the fable, Cronus was imprisoned in Tartarus with the Titans; according to another, he was reconciled with Zeus, and reigned with Rhadamanthys on the Islands of the Blessed. Cronus seems originally to have been a god of the harvest; whence it happens that in many parts of Greece the harvest month was called CrOnlon. His name being easily