CRATES krā’ tez (Κράτης), commander of the Cyprian troops who were supporting Sostratus, the commandant of the citadel in Jerusalem during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Crates was left in charge of the citadel when King Ptolemy VI Philometor summoned Sostratus and Menelaus to Antioch for failing to pay the king for the priesthood which the latter had obtained (2 Macc. 4:29).

Bibliography II Maccabees in the Jerusalem Bible (1966).