Pratinas () was one of the early tragic poets who flourished at Athens at the beginning of the fifth century BCE, and whose combined efforts were thought by critics to have brought the art to its perfection. Life He was a native of Phlius in Peloponnese, and was therefore by birth a Dorian. His father's name was Pyrrhonides or Encomius. It is not known at what time he went to Athens, but we find him exhibiting there, in competition with Choerilus and Aeschylus, around the 70th Olympiad, that is, 500–499 BCE, the year of Aeschylus's debut. Works The main innovation that ancient critics ascribed to Pratinas was the separation of the satyric from the tragic drama. Pratinas is frequently credited as having introduced satyr plays as a species of entertainment distinct from tragedy, in which the rustic merry-makings and the extravagant dances of the satyrs were retained. The change preserved a highly characteristic feature of the older form of tragedy, the entire rejection of which would have met with serious obstacles, not only from the popular taste, but from religious associations, and yet preserved it in such a manner as, while developing its own capabilities, to set free the tragic drama from certain of its genre constraints. A band of Satyrs, as the companions of Dionysus, formed the original chorus of tragedy; and their jests and frolics were interspersed with the more serious action of the drama, without causing any more sense of incongruity than is felt in the reading of those humorous passages of Homer, from which Aristotle traces the origin of the satyric drama and of comedy. As however tragedy came to be separated more and more from any reference to Dionysus, and the whole of the heroic mythology was included in its range of subjects, the chorus of Satyrs came to be seen as impracticable and absurd, and at the same time the humorous element, which formed an essential part of the character of the chorus of Satyrs, became more and more incongruous with the earnest spirit of the higher tragic dramas. It is easy to enter into the fun of the Prometheus the Fire-kindler, where an old Satyr singes his beard in attempting to embrace the beautiful fire; but it is hard to fancy what the poet could have done with a chorus of Satyrs, in place of the ocean nymphs, in the Prometheus Bound. The