A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

2. A poet or musician, who appears to have been eminent in his art, by the notice of him in Plutarch, who says that "he usually avoided the chromatic genus of music, not through ignorance of it, but from choice, and imitated, as he himself said, the style of Pindar and Simonides, and in a word that which is called the ancient by those of the present day." (De Mus. 20, p. 1137,e.) This notice seems to imply that Pancrates lived either at or just before the time of Plutarch, but whether he was simply a musician, or a lyric poet, or a tragedian, the context leaves us altogether in doubt.