Pratinas was one of the earliest tragic poets of Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, he was a native of Phlius

Phlius

Phlius was a Greek city in the northwestern Argolid, in the Peloponnese, said to be named after the Greek hero, Phlias. Although geographically close to Argos, the city became a Spartan ally and a member of the Peloponnesian League....

 in Peloponnesus. About 500 BC he competed with Choerilus

Choerilus

There were several poets named Choerilus:* Choerilus - writer of tragedies* Choerilus of Iasus - epic poet* Choerilus of Samos - epic poet...

 and Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...

, when the latter made his first appearance as a writer for the stage.

Pratinas was also the introducer of satyr play

Satyr play

Satyr plays were an ancient Greek form of tragicomedy, similar in spirit to burlesque. They featured choruses of satyrs, were based on Greek mythology, and were rife with mock drunkenness, brazen sexuality , pranks, sight gags, and general merriment.Satyric drama was one of the three varieties of...

s as a species of entertainment distinct from tragedy

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

, in which the rustic merry-makings and the extravagant dances of the satyr

Satyr

In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....

s were retained. The associations of his home, not far from Corinth

Corinth

Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...

, where Arion

Arion

Arion was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb: "As a literary composition for chorus dithyramb was the creation of Arion of Corinth," The islanders of Lesbos claimed him as their native son, but Arion found a patron in Periander, tyrant of Corinth...

 was said to have established the cyclic choruses of satyrs, may account for his preference for this kind of drama. Pratinas was also a writer of dithyramb

Dithyramb

The dithyramb was an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility; the term was also used as an epithet of the god: Plato, in The Laws, while discussing various kinds of music mentions "the birth of Dionysos, called, I think, the dithyramb." Plato also...

s and the choral odes called "hyporchemata" (a considerable fragment of one of these is preserved in Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

, xiv. 617).

A monument was erected by the inhabitants of Phlius in honor of Pratinas's son Aristeas, who, with his father, enjoyed the reputation of excelling all, with the exception of Aeschylus, in the composition of satyric drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

s, one of which was called Cyclops

Cyclops

A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...

.

See Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

 ii. 13; Suidas q.v.; fragments in T. Bergk

Theodor Bergk

Theodor Bergk was a German philologist, an authority on classical Greek poetry.-Biography:He was born in Leipzig. After studying at the University of Leipzig, where he profited by the instruction of G. Hermann, he was appointed in 1835 to the lectureship in Latin at the orphan school at Halle...

, Poetae Lyrici Graeci, vol. iii.