In this chapter I attempt to suggest a reading for the Prometheus-scene in Birds that takes into account many different elements of the Prometheus story. The first part of the chapter looks closely at Prometheus' costume and the possible reasons he outfitted himself as a woman at a religious festival. The second part stresses that similarities between Birds and [Aischylos'] Prometheus Bound (= PV) should be understood in the context of sophistic interpretations of cultural development. I also show that Prometheus presence in Birds should be understood in light of Hesiod's Prometheus story, and the god's association with the golden age. Finally, I examine the relationship between Nephelokokkygia and Athens as it is manifested in the ideology of Prometheus and Peisetairos: each represent the opposite of the other. The Hesiodic Prometheus is responsible for humanity's fall from the golden age, while Peisetairos constructs a new, pre-Promethean city with golden age qualities. It is within this context that Peisetairos emerges as a new type of political leader.

Essential to understanding the Prometheus-scene is the nature of Prometheus' costume, that is, how he appeared to the audience. Prometheus comes on stage with either part of his himation or a blanket wrapped around his head; he is afraid that Zeus may see him consorting with Peisetairos and the Nephelokokkygians. The 'mufflement',[1] in fact, plays up Prometheus' fear of Zeus and it humorously prevents him from hearing the answers Peisetairos gives him to his question about the time of day.[2] Peisetairos' response to his costuming is, t€! ı !ugkalummÒ! (1496); The word kãlumma lies behind this term, otherwise unattested. The kãlumma itself was a kind of veil worn by women on certain occasions, as for example when they got married or when they were mourning.[3] The main point is that it is part of a woman's outfit and not a man's. Other examples from Aristophanes of men wearing veils to look like women appear in Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazousai and fragment 332,5 (PCG).[4] In Lysistrata the women dress up the Proboulos as a "housewife: wearing a veil and sitting with his woolworking equipment."[5] In Thesmophoriazousai the Relative sits fãrei kaluptÚ!, playing Helen waiting to be rescued by Euripides playing Menelaos. Euripides/Menelaos asks why the Relative/Helen sits wrapped up in this way and he responds that he is being forced to marry the son of Proteus. Finally, in fragment 332 (PCG) the kãlumma is present among a list of other feminine items.[6] From this evidence it is probable that Prometheus' wrap (whether or not he has an actual kãlumma or he has simply thrown his himation over his head) resembles that of woman.

Another prop suggesting femininity is the parasol, !kiãdeion, which Prometheus is carrying when he comes on stage.[7] He uses this to hide himself from the watchful eye of Zeus above. Elsewhere in comedy the !kiãdeion is a sign of effeminacy. Pherekrates fr. 70 PCG has a murop≈lh! sitting under a !kiãdeion talking (§llale›n) to young boys (meirak€oi!), and Photius (s.v. !kiå! ka‹ !kiãdeion) notes the !kiãdeion §n œi DiÒnu!o! [the ultimate effeminate, as in Frogs and Euripides' Bacchae] kãyhtai. During the procession of the Panathenaic festival, non-citizen girls, the daughters of metics, carried !kiãdeia above the heads of young citizen girls (pary°noi) who themselves carried baskets (kãnea) on their heads. Accordingly, these young citizen girls were called kanhfÒroi.[8] According to the scholion on Ekklesiazousai 18 ı flereÁ! toË ÉErexy°v! f°rei !kiãdeion leukÒn at the Skria festival on Skiraphorion 12 (roughly June 12). This sunshade, however, is more like a large canopy since it had to cover not only the representative from the Eteobutadai clan but also the priestess of Athena and the priest of Poseidon.[9] The audience may have thought of scenes such as these when Peisetairos held the parasol over his and Prometheus' head during our scene.[10] Furthermore, just before Prometheus exits he takes back the parasol from Peisetairos and presumably leaves with it above his head. He does this ·na me kín ı ZeÁ! ‡d˙/ênvyen, ékolouye›n dok« kanhfÒrvi (1551). Peisetairos adds that he should take the d€fro!, which the metics' daughters carried in addition to the !kiãdeia[11] and was coincidentally on stage, in order to complete the 'disguise'.[12] Therefore at the beginning and at the end of this scene Prometheus resembles a woman: at the beginning because of the veil and at the end because of the parasol and stool he carries.

Each of these elements should be seen as women's accouterments. It is surprising, therefore, that scholars have not suggested that these props cause the audience to see Prometheus as a woman throughout the scene.[13] While, on the one hand, this means that Prometheus looks like a woman, it does not mean that he is effeminate (not, for example, as Agathon in Thesmophoriazousai). On the other hand, Prometheus himself has the idea of looking like a woman in a religious festival procession when at the end of the scene (1550-1) he says, 'give me the parasol, so if Zeus does see me up there, he'll think I'm attending a kanhfÒro!.' In short, Aristophanes intends his audience to see these props as feminine and Prometheus as a woman.

But why does Aristophanes have Prometheus dress himself up like a woman? Prometheus himself looks like a woman prepared for a festival, in particular the women fasting at the Themsmophoria (1519). Reference to this festival is fitting as Peisetairos' blockade has left all the gods famished, including Prometheus (≤mç! at 1518):[14] éll' …!pere‹ Ye!mofor€oi! nh!teÊomen/êneu yuhl«n (1519). Since Prometheus' clothing and props resemble, as we have said, feminine festival accouterments, it is not entirely out of order that Prometheus make this comparison.

There is one feature of the Thesmophoria that would have been familiar to the audience and appropriate to the situation of a starving Prometheus: the irritable nature of the women on the second day of the festival, the day the women fasted. In the reference to the Thesmophoria commentators have noted that the second day of that three-day festival, the Nh!te€a, was a day of fasting. But this was strictly a woman's affair and therefore a little strange and certainly funny in the mouth of Prometheus. The rationale behind the joke, however, lies in the nature of the fasting.

On the day before the Nh!te€a, the ÖAnodo!, the women had brought themselves and various things (supplies enough to remain away from home for three days) to the Thesmophorion, in Attika located near the Pnyx.[15] But some time in the summer preceding the month of Pyanopsion (October), the 11th-13th of which the Thesmophoria took place, piglets were thrown (alive)[16] into chasms near the Pnyx. Later, during the festival, women priest called éntlÆtriai hauled the rotting remains into a sanctuary. Becasue these remains were considered powerfully fertile, anyone who mixed them with seeds for sowing (the time for which was the month of Pyanopsion) would have an abundant harvest. These actions comprised, as far as we can know, the events of the first day.

The second day on which the women actually fasted was 'gloomy'[17] and filled with discomfiture not only from the fasting itself but also from the uncomfortable nature of their living arrangements: on the ÖAnodo! they brought tents to be set up (without furniture) and slept on branches from the lÊgo![18] or agnus castus — a kind of willow — which both "tempers sexual desire and favors the flowing of the menses."[19] This rugged atmosphere is, on the one hand, an imitation of, and a response to Demeter's morning for Persephone.[20] On the other hand, it is also a purposive recollection of the primitive conditions of life that preceded civilization. Though we cannot be sure, the ritual aischrologia which is said to be part of the festival[21] may have taken place on this day. The women would already be in an irritable mood from lack of food, and the obscenities, while ritualistic and functional — they are a reminder of Iambe and the abusive remarks she told Demeter to make her smile[22] — might have come rather easily. Finally, after this unpleasant day of fasting the women honored with meat sacrifices (yuhla€) Demeter, the goddess of beautiful birth (Kallig°neia).[23]

The (male) audience of Birds, no doubt, knew that the nature of the fasting at the Thesmophoria was depressive and asexual, and that it contained some amount of aischrologia.[24] Would they have not laughed at Prometheus, imagining himself as one of these starving women? All the gods, to be sure, are starving and sullen because of the blockade. In light of the Thesmophoria, Prometheus' veil may remind the audience of mourning women, like those at the festival, but certainly his sunshade and sitting stool would remind them of the young citizens girls who participated in the festival. More interesting is why Aristophanes bothered at all to make Prometheus resemble a woman and have him mention the Thesmophoria. Was it for the fasting joke alone? At most, I can suggest that Prometheus comes on stage as if he were trying to blend into a religious pompÆ to escape the eye of Zeus. Somehow Prometheus imagines that such a pompÆ is going on in Nephelokokkygia Or is it the festival pompÆ of the City Dionysia? Furthermore, Pompa€ always culminate in sacrifice and communal feasting, and it may be that the audience saw a connection here between Prometheus and sacrifice. Speculation beyond this would not be profitable.

Despite the reasons for Prometheus' appearance, that he appears at all is not surprising.[25] In this regard, it is important to consider what aspects of Prometheus are emphasized in the play.

There are hints throughout Birds that as a possible over-arching theme for the play and our scene Aristophanes had in mind the Titanomachy, in which Prometheus figures as Zeus' advisor against the Titans. Similarly, in Birds Prometheus advises Peisetairos (this time) against the Olympians. While the theme is certainly present, it does not necessarily recall PV. At PV 209-213 Prometheus mentions his role in advising Zeus against the Titans as a passing reference that serves only to emphasize Prometheus' bitterness. Furthermore, this element of the Prometheus story was told in an early cyclic poem, written perhaps by Eumelos of Corinth or Arktinos of Miletos.[26] It also seems likely that Xenophanes knew this element as well. In a poem about the proper songs to sing at table, he advises not to sing of divine battles or Titanomachies, and, interestingly, says one should always have good promhye€hn when it comes to the gods.[27]

There are also references in Birds to the Gigantomachy in which Herakles, not Prometheus, helps Zeus against the Giants.[28] But the stories of the Titanomachy and Gigantomachy seem already confused perhaps by at least the 420s.[29] While our first example seems certain, there are, nonetheless, more general problems with associating the play and Prometheus' appearance with either of these battles. MacDowell in his Aristophanes and Athens contrasts the "brute force" of the two myths and the "clever strategy" of Peisetairos in Birds. He concludes that "there is no strong evidence that any part of Birds copies it at all closely, still less that parody or mockery of it was the main point of the play."[30] Dunbar too doubts that the "ethical content" of the two myths has anything to do with the plot, and that the myths are there purely for "dramatic effect."[31]

The main similarity between Prometheus in each of these plays is evident from the god's willingness to help humans. In PV, at 447-468 and 476-506 he lists at length the benefits he gave to humans, and ends by exclaiming, pç!ai t°xnai broto›!in §k Promhy°v!. His reasons for doing this are explained by his statement earlier in the play that after Zeus gained control of Olympos, he paid no attention to mortals and intened to destroy them (231-6). In Birds he comes to Nephelokokkygia to warn Peisetairos of the divine embassy that will come to sue peace, and to advise him to demand Basileia, the secret to Zeus' power. In each play, Prometheus attempts to undermine Zeus.

In addition to Prometheus' helpfulness there are verbal echoes between PV and Birds. It has been argued that this is more evidence of the influence of PV in Birds.[32] This may be true, but the echoes are not exclusive to these two works,[33] and I think the reasons lie elsewhere. A brief look at the evidence will show that the allusions are part of common poetic vocabulary. Birds 685ff.,[34]

êge dÆ, fÊ!in êndre! émaurÒbioi, fÊllvn geneò pro!Òmoioi

Ùligodran°e!, plã!mata phloË, !kioeid°a fËl' émenhnã,

épt∞ne! §fÆmerioi, talao€ broto€, én°re! efikelÒneiroi, ktl.

seem to recall PV 547f.

t€! §famer€vn êrhji!; oÈd' §d°rxyh!

Ùligodran€an êkikun,

€sÒneiron, † tÚ fvt«n

élaÚn g°no! §mpepodi!m°non; ktl.,

and Birds 1182,

=Êm˙ te ka‹ ptero›!i ka‹ =oizÆma!in

afiyØr done›tai toË yeoË zhtoum°nou:

seem to recall PV 124f.

...afiyØr d' §lafra›!

pterÊgvn =ipa›! Íposur€zei.

There is also Birds 1197 which has become an anonymous tragic fragment and been considered an echo of PV.[35] In addition, Prometheus' comment in Birds that he is propitious towards men (1545) has been likened to similar statements in PV (11 and 28) as has his retort that he hates the gods (Birds 1547 and PV 975).[36]

These allusions in Birds to PV can be found in other sources. Birds 685ff. also recall Iliad 6,146ff.

o·h per fÊllvn geneÆ, to€h d¢ ka‹ éndr«n.

fÊlla tå m°n t' ênemo! xamãdi! x°ei, êlla d° y' Ïlh

thleyÒv!a fÊei, ¶aro! d' §pig€gnetai Àr˙.

as well as Pindar Pythian 8,95

§pãmeroi: t€ d° ti!; t€ d' oÎ ti!; !kiç! ˆnar

ênyrvpo!.[37]

Furthermore, if Birds 1182ff. "tragoediam spirant,"[38] they still need not refer to a specific tragedy. For example, the verb done›tai, as Blaydes and van Leewen point out, is common among the lyric poets but among tragedians occurs only in a single satyric fragment from Aischylos.[39]

That Birds 1197 is in fact taken from a tragedy is also hard to prove. Aristophanes employs tragic sounding lines because he is bringing Iris on stage in tragic fashion via the mechane: just as he intends to parody the use of the machine, so too he parodies tragic-sounding language. It is only somewhat artificially and by ignoring other possible sources that we can align references in Birds with lines from the PV.

The main point here is lack of specific verbal allusions in Birds and the Prometheus-scene to PV; what we have seen are allusions that occur in general poetic language. The most noticeable similarity is the description of the fragility of humans. This correspondence should be understood in light of sophistic theories of cultural development, the origins of which may be archaic, as the references to Homer and Pindar indicate, but it was out of these notions that the sophistic ideas grew.

Because concepts in PV recall certain sophistic theories prominent after Aischylos' death, this presents a problem for authorship and date. There is evidence that PV does not belong to Aischylos and dates to some time in the 430s,[40] when sophism had found a firm place in the structure of Athenian society. Evidence for the date, however, is much less good than it is for authorship. But here is not the place to argue for or against Aischylos: scholars still disagree.[41] Nonetheless, I think that PV does not belong to Aischylos but rather to a later writer who was at least to some degree influenced by sophistic ideas and incorporated them into the play. I would stress that there are similarities between PV and Birds because they reflect sophistic ideas current in Athens during the last thirty years (or so) of the fifth century, and the similarities should be understood not in light of Aischylean themes of justice or restoration but in light of Prometheus' role in the advent of civilization as it was presented by the sophists of Athens.

One prominent theme between PV and sophistic thought is the progress of humans from an original primitive state.[42] In PV this is most evident at 442ff. where Prometheus says of mortals, ékoÊ!ay', À! !fa! nhp€ou! ˆnta! tÚ pr‹n...tÚn makrÚn b€on ¶furon efik∞i pãnta. As the passage continues we learn that it was Prometheus who brought housing, agriculture, domestication of animals, sailing, medicine, divination, etc. With this may be compared the sophistic descriptions, prevalent from the 430s on, in which humans rise above their beastlike state with the aid of technology (sometimes the gift of a divinity sometimes not).[43] These descriptions are based on the notion that nomoi changed human life, but early humans were not themselves responsible for the changes in their lives.[44] For example, Euripides takes up this theory in Supplices (201-13) when he has Theseus thank the anonymous god who brought about human's rise from a beastlike state (yhri≈dou!). Diodoros, book 1,8,1-7 also reflects earlier sophistic ideas describing human progress as a gradual event effected by experience. In a fragment of Moschion[45] early life was indeed harsh (it even involved cannibalism) and only through time and necessity did humans improve their lot. These descriptions sound much like the life Pherekrates describes in his Agrioi (esp. fr. 13 Edmonds): his protagonists, like Peisetairos and Euelpides, flee Athens (?) but unlike them find primitive life too hard and unpleasant. Ideas such as these probably have their sophistic origins in Protagoras who tells his version of human development in Plato (Prot. 520c8ff.).[46] In Birds, these sophistic ideas develop around representations of Athens, whose civilization is a result of Promethean gifts. This makes more sense after an examination of the unique relationship between Athens and Prometheus in this respect.

As I have already suggested, the sophists of the late fifth century turned archaic notions of a harder earlier life into the roots of their own understanding of the establishment of civilization among humans: bereft of their divine protection but endowed with the new cultural gifts of Prometheus, humans were armed against the cruelties of nature, with which previously they need not have contended. Out of their primitive existence, humans developed culture. For the Athenians alone, in this respect, Prometheus was significant in cult.

Kratinos' Ploutoi (produced in 429?) is the first source that alludes to this unique relationship between Prometheus and Athens. The Titan chorus of this play, previously enslaved by Zeus, who is now dethroned, comes to Athens[47] to see how their aÈtoka!€gnhton palaiÒn (fr. 171,25 PCG) is doing.[48] If the old 'blood-brother' is Prometheus and the demos referred to is that of Athens, as is likely, this is the earliest literary reference to Prometheus' association with Athens—an association most visible in the festival of Prometheus held in Athens at least until 405.[49]

Outside of Athens, in the Akademeia, there was an altar for Prometheus.[50] The Athenians — when exactly we do not know — held torch races in his honor, starting from this altar and ending in the Kerameikos. The significance of these races has been described thus by Ludwig Deubner: daß man zu bestimmter Zeit das durch den langen Gebrauch verunreinigte Feuer durch neues, von dem Alter des Feuergottes geholtes, ersetzen wollte;[51] and more recently by and Italian scholar: "indirizzare le valenze cosmogoniche del fuoco prometeico alla realizzazione della cosmogonia ateniese."[52] By bringing fire to mortals Prometheus represents, so to speak, the first contestant in these torch races from the Akademia (whose grove was sacred to Athena), through the Kerameikos (where the craftsmen, who used Prometheus' t°xnai, worked and resided) to the Akropolis. The festival brings fire, the mother of technology, into the center of the city, both recalling human development through this technology and establishing Athens as the center and manifestation of that development. It is probable then that Prometheus, having a festival nowhere else in the Greek world, was for at least the later part of the fifth century a god particular to Athens. This explains why he was readily identifiable to the audience of Birds when at 1504, after Prometheus has unveiled himself, Peisetairos exclaims, Œ f€le PromhyeË.[53]

It is important to bear this relationship in mind when considering the connection between Prometheus and the Athens from which Peisetairos and Euelpides run away, and the very different construction of Nephelokokkygia. Especially because of its relationship with Prometheus, not to mention its pride in being the cultural center of Greece,[54] Athens is the manifestation of a Promethean world.

But what kind of world is Athens? From what are Peisetairos and Euelpides running away? Playing off the sophistic interpretation of primitive human beginnings, Aristophanes has Peisetairos and Euelpides escape Athens and return to life among animals. They run away from Athenian civilization to create their own version of it. They do this because of the litigious nature and complications of Athens: it is the opposite of the tÒpon éprãgmona (43) they seek at the beginning of the play. This is a theme not too uncommon today — escaping from the mayhem of the city by moving to the country, a move from the complex to the simple. In this way, Nephelokokkygia is an anti-Athens. By establishing his new city with the birds, Peisetairos returns to nature and abandons the troublesome nomoi of Athens.

This reversal makes it clear that Nephelokokkygia is an anti-Athens where customs are not based on Athenain nomoi. Athenians, as portrayed in the play, though interested in the life of the birds, fail to be transformed as Peisetairos is. Athenians have bird names and are crazy about the birds and their life (1284ff.), but their excessive interest in the natural world of the birds is sarcastically presented. They have only learned to fly, like birds, §p‹ nomÒn, a pun for nÒmon;[55] they come to land on tå bibl€a, a pun for edible plants; finally their means of nourishment (§n°monto, 1289) is really tå chf€!mata, revealing again their litigious nature. They do not act in accordance with the bird way, pãnta ÍpÚ ≤don∞! poie›n, 1284, and consequently do not really change their ways. That Athens has misunderstood the nature of Nephelokokkygia is also clear from the Athenians Peisetairos kicks out of the new city. These represent aspects of Athens he thinks should be absent from his world, especially the oracle-monger, the inspector and the decree-seller.[56]

One aspect of Nephelokokkygia and Peisetairos' rule that has largely gone unexplored by readers of Birds is the portfolio of Basileia. At 1534- 36, Prometheus tells Peisetairos that if he wants to have Zeus' !k∞ptron, he must marry this woman named Basileia, or Princess. She is Zeus' tam€a, or housekeeper, who dispenses the attributes of Zeus' kingdom. These attributes, however, look suspiciously similar to Athens. She has eÈboul€a, eÈnom€a, and !vfro!Ênh, all aristocratic buzz-words that allude to the nomoi of Athens. But the list continues and comically juxtaposes these lofty ideals with descriptions that are clearly meant to refer to Athens: ne≈ria, dockyards loidor€a, forensic abuse and slander, kvlakr°th!, a public paymaster, and finally tri≈bola, three-obol fees for duties to the city. This is Olympos, the democratic institution about which some thirty lines later in the play Poseidon complains. When Peisetairos marries Basileia at the end of the play does Peisetairos incorporate her portfolio as a sort of 'dowry' into his city? Do these Olympian/Athenian democratic elements have a place in Peisetairos' tyranny? We may be left to wonder, but whatever the case, they do not disturb the harmony that exists between Peisetairos and his demos of birds. For when, at 1584-85, there is du!nom€a and two dissident birds rise up against the bird demos (dhmotiko›!in Ùrn°oi!, 1584), they vote democratically (¶dojan, 1585) to execute them. Peisetairos does not order this without the approval of the birds (though he carries out the order). Such a process and harmony do not exist among the divine embassy, which, as we shall see in the next chapter, represents in miniature the democratic process in Olympos/Athens.

Negative elements of Athens are further emphasized in a reference to a famous passage from tragedy that has sophistic ideas of development in mind. Birds 1470-93 (with 1553-64 and 1694-105) seem to start from Sophokles' passage at Antigone 332-375 about humankind's special ingenuity.[57] Instead of listing humankind's accomplishments, the birds sarcastically list the cowardice of Kleonymous and Peisander, the thievery of Orestes, and the ruinously cunning rhetoric of sophists and lawyers like Gorgias and Philippos. If Aristophanes had Sophokles and his praise of human progress in mind, these lyrical songs in Birds clearly mock instead of praise this progress.

Compare also the list of Promethean benefits in PV: ériymÒ!, grammãtvn !uny°!i!, mou!omÆtvr, §n zugo›!i kn≈dala, ·ppoi Íf' ërma[58], yala!!Òplagkta ÙxÆmata (PV 459-468); the list soon continues with fãrmaka, mantikÆ, xalkÒ!, !€dhro!, êrgo!, xru!Ò! (480ff.) One can match many of these gifts with the scenes in Birds in which Peisetairos kicks out certain undesirables: ériymÒ! and Meton; mou!omÆtvr and Kinesias; mantikÆ and the oracle-monger; êrgo!, or money, and Peisetairos and Euelpides who are in trouble in the first place because of money. These scenes ridicule the 'progress' of a 'Promethean' world (which is Athens) and point toward the promise of Peisetairos' new city.[59] And to point in this direction is appropriate for Birds since Peisetairos and Euelpides want to live some place quite different from Athens: where the people are not as obsessed with their nomoi.[60] In comic fashion, through these representations, Aristophanes presents Athens as an inferior place to Nephelokokkygia.

Peisetairos rejects the 'civilization' of Athens and creates his own city. He becomes a new Prometheus by taking over a pre-Promethean bird world. He organizes it into a city, but how is this city characterized? Many elements in Birds point toward not only Prometheus' role in the establishment of human civilization, as in PV, but also the establishment of sacrifices and his responsibility for the separation of humans from the gods and their life of ease, as they are presented in Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days.

Prometheus, the god who created meat sacrifices, mentions them at Birds 1520 (êneu yuhl«n).[61] This calls attention to the importance of sacrifice for the play, in which the control of sacrifices means the defeat of the gods and rule of the universe. In connection with Prometheus, the right to sacrifice also means separation from divinity and the introduction of hard labor and marriage: these being a definition of what it means to be human and a reminder of mortality. In general comedy seeks to mend this rift between humanity and divinity, labor and repose, and painful and blissful marriage, by presenting a hero who overcomes daily troubles and establishes the most incredible of worlds for himself, and in the process often sets right the institution of marriage. In Acharnians Dikaiopolis establishes his own peace during the Peloponnesian war and at the end of the play saves a bridegroom from military service; in Peace Trygaios also establishes Peace (a cult?) and marries her, as Peisetairos similarly marries Basileia, once his comic world is established. Prometheus, with his actions at Mekone and the consequences thereof, plays an important role in the creation of 'mortality' for men, which is represented in sacrifice and, among other things, is a symbol of man's separation from god.

In Birds, Peisetairos (re)constructs a pre-Promethean place where one's immediate desires are immediately fulfilled,[62] a place more primitive because the inhabitants are beasts, but a place closer to a golden age than present-day society.[63] A peaceful life of prosperity, brought forth by the nature of the birds, await those who would live in Nephelokokkygia, just as peace and prosperity issued forth automatically in Hesiod's golden age.

Opposed to the sophistic idea of progress we have examined is another common Greek notion, the steady decline of humans from a better time or golden age, which is characterized by "a sufficiency of natural food in conjunction with high moral character and a complete absence of wars and dissension."[64] The connection with comedy should be clear from this description — one need only think of Dikaiopolis in Acharnians. For the Greeks' ideas about the golden age originate in Hesiod, and are, I would argue, a latent but recurring theme of Aristophanic comedy, and certainly the basis for other plays by other poets.[65] Prometheus plays an important role in humanity's fall from the golden age, and because Birds recalls Hesiod in important ways, we should also understand the Prometheus of Birds in terms of Hesiod. From him[66] especially (and others)[67] the image arises of a Prometheus who stands somewhere between mortals and immortals as a token of man's passage from a life of repose to a life filled with work, the institution of sacrifice, marriage and separation from divinity — a separation, furthermore, that represents not only man's separation from the gods but also his separation from animals.[68] By his actions in Birds Peisetairos reverses that which Prometheus brought into existence.[69]

In Birds, similarities between Nephelokokkygia and Hesiod's golden age are most evident from Works and Days 109-120, but must be understood from the beginning of Hesiod's story of Prometheus at 42-46. The story blames Prometheus and his deception of Zeus for the difficulties in argriculture; otherwise, Hesiod says, one could work only a day for enough food all year. This earlier life before Prometheus is parallel to the golden race of men who live like gods (112) and enjoy food from fields that yield harvests without work (117-8). Those who would live in Nephelokokkygia also no longer work for their food but eat, as the birds do, sesame, myrtle, poppy seeds and mint from Nephelokokkygia whose bird inhabitants offer a profitable life to humans.[70]

It is within a tradition that seems to begin with Kratinos' PloËtoi (436?),[71] that Birds presents to its audience this new city with Hesiodic golden age qualities. Nephelokokkygia will be the magical place where comic fantasies are played out katå fÊ!in and not katå nÒmou!. It is a place like this that a fragment from Telekleides' ÉAmfiktÊone! describes, where efirÆnh m¢n pr«ton èpãntvn ∑n À!per Ïdvr katå xeirÒ!.[72] The fragment continues to describe a time when acquisition of food was not a problem, when, for example, mçzai...flketeÊou!ai katap€nein. Such a place was found by comic Laurion miners in Pherekrates' Metall∞!.[73] In Kratinos' Ploutoi, aÈtÒmata to›!i [subjects of Kronos?] yeÚ! én€ei tégayã.[74]

The golden age as described by Hesiod is itself similar to the places these comic poets refer to; it is also like the life of the birds (which they describe at 331 as governed by ye!moÁ! érxa€ou!), for it is characterized not only by its food — as are the fantastic places just mentioned — but also by its absence of the nomoi by which humans (in Athens) generally live.[75] Accordingly, Hesiod Works and Days 116ff., which describes the golden age,

…karp™Ún d' ¶fere ze€dvro! êroura

aÈtomãth pollÒn te ka‹ êfyonon: o„ d' §yelhmo€

¥!uxoi ¶rg' §n°monto !Án §!ylo›!in pol°e!!in,

is not far from what Tereus says about life among the birds (159f.),

o pr«ta m¢n de› z∞n êneu ballant€ou…[76]

nemÒme!ya d' §n kÆpoi! tå leukå !Æ!ama

ka‹ mÊrta ka‹ mÆkvna ka‹ !i!Êmbria.

Nephelokokkygia is, as the golden age was, governed by physis, natural desire, and not by the Athenian nomoi that Peisetairos expels from his city. In the first parabasis (787ff.) the bird chorus makes quite clear the advantages of becoming a citizen of Nephelokokkygia:

e‰ta [ti!] pein«n to›! xoro›!i t«n tragƒd«n ≥xyeto,

§kptÒmeno! ín oto! ±r€!th!en §ly∆n o‡kade,

küt' ín §mplh!ye‹! §f' ≤mç! aÔyi! aÔ kat°ptato.

e‡ te Patrokle€dh! ti! Ím«n tugxãnei xezhti«n,

oÈk ín §j€di!en efi! yofimãtion, éll' én°ptato

képopard∆n kénapneÊ!a! aÔyi! aÔ kat°ptato.

e‡ te moixeÊvn ti! Ím«n §!tin ˜!ti! tugxãnei,

küt' ırò tÚn êndra t∞! gunaikÚ! §n bouleutik“,

oto! ín pãlin par' Ímn«n pterug€!a! én°ptato,

e‰ta binÆ!a! §ke›yen aÔyi! aÔ kay°zeto.

îr' ÍpÒpteron gen°!yai pantÒ! §!tin êjion;

The desires, here underlined, are among the primary human desires driven by physis: eating, 'crapping', and 'screwing'.

The relationship between physis and nomos in Birds, however, reaches beyond obeisance to physical desires. Nomos, for instance, in Birds is used in two different ways. It can mean either the different types of melodies birds sing[77] or it can mean 'laws', 'customs.' In Birds the first meaning is always used in connection with Nephelokokkygia while the latter only with Athens. This, for example, leads to confusion when the patraloias who comes to live in Nephelokokkygia tells Peisetairos §piyum« t«n nÒmvn of the new city. Peisetairos asks po€vn nÒmvn; pollo‹ går Ùrn€yvn nÒmoi assuming that the young man means that he loves the bird songs of Nephelokokkygia — Peisetairos would never have thought of 'laws' or 'customs' since they play no part in Nephelokokkygia as they do in Athens.[78] Physis crops up less frequently but the instances illustrate well its contrast with nomos. For instance, at the beginning of the play Peisetairos explains metatheatrically to the audience why he and Euelpides have left Athens. He says (with more than a hint of sarcasm) that he does not hate the city nor want tÚ mØ oÈ megãlhn e‰nai fÊ!ei keÈda€mona.[79] This is reminiscent of Thukydides 1,70,9 where the Corinthians say of the Athenians, aÈtoÁ!...pefuk°nai §p‹ t«i mÆte aÈtoÁ! ¶xein ≤!ux€an mÆte toÁ! êllou! ényr≈pou! §çn.

The antithesis nomos-physis was a significant part of sophistic argumentation in the late fifth century.[80] The audience of Birds, I suggest, would have seen Peisetairos and the 'reforms' of Nephelokokkygia in the light of this antithesis. Sophists who argued from physis adapted the natural philosophers'[81] definitions and arguments about physis to their needs in sophistic education. Principal among these sophists were Kallikles and Antiphon,[82] the former holding the belief that physis should allow the strong to rule over the weak, who themselves use nomoi to suppress those who are stronger by nature, while the later believed that "morality enforced by law and custom is contrary to nature, and nature's way is to be preferred."[83] These arguments have their ultimate origin in views about the evolution of humankind. There were three prominent theories. One propounded that life was a cycle like the seasons, in which good was replaced with bad, and then good, and so forth. Empedokles and probably Anaximander (and also the Pythagoreans, although they believed that history exactly repeated itself) were proponents of this belief. Another was the gradual improvement of life. Xenophanes, Demokritos, Kritias and Protagoras generally took the side of the validity of nomoi, which they believed humans needed to organize themselves when they first began to do so.[84] The third outlook was one of degeneration of human life, that the best had passed and that we could only hope to imitate what had gone before. Antiphon and Kallikles were bent in this direction, believing that we could attain some of the former glory by following physis. It is not difficult to see how Hesiod's presentation of the golden age is similar to this fifth-century sophistic discussion. These arguments were in the air from at least the 430s onward, and no doubt Aristophanes' audience would have been keen to see them in Birds, which takes the side of physis and supports, as Antiphon and Kallikles did, the benefits of physis for both society and the individual.

The antithesis also calls our attention to its use by politicians in Athens at and near the time of the play. Their political platform, founded on the authority of nomos, stands in obvious contrast not only to the anti-nomian reforms as we have seen them in Nephelokokkygia, but also the founder of those reforms, Peisetairos himself. There are two main political contexts in which the use of nomos and physis plays a prominent role in the second half of the fifth century. They are the debate in Athens about the fate of Mytilene and the debate on Melos about the fate of the Melians, versions of which Thukydides provides in his history of the war.[85] The first of these events occurred in 427, and the other in 416.

In each of these debates, the orators used arguments from either physis or nomos to plead their cases. The fate of the Mytilenians, that all the young men be killed and all the women and children be enslaved, was called into question the day after the judgment was made. Kleon and Diodotos each made speeches to the assembly, the one in favor of upholding the gruesome decision, the other in favor of recalling it. Kleon argued that a city is better off with bad nomoi that are nonetheless established than a city with fine nomoi that are nonetheless not enforced.[86] Diodotos, who narrowly persuaded the Athenians to change their minds, argued that once human nature (physis) decides upon a course (in this case to revolt against the Athenian empire since it is natural to want to be autonomous), it cannot be turned back either by force of nomoi or anything else.[87] At Melos the Athenians argued that it was human nature for the powerful to rule; even the gods, they said, were subject to this principle and no nomoi could change this.[88]

Kleon the demagogue, who in Aristophanes' plays is represented as the worst type of leader, argued from nomoi that the Athenians should destroy the Mytilenians. He is the antipode of ideal leaders in Aristophanic comedy. Nomoi, as Kleon states, define a city. This line of argument was natural for a man in his position: it was, after all, these Athenian nomoi that allowed him after Perikles' death to rise from newly established families (and not only the oldest ones), gain office and, especially, manipulate the demos. Kleon is the perfect example of Kallikles' argument concerning the use of nomoi. The Athenian delegates at Melos, however, argue from physis for their right to rule. These men were probably not demagogues like Kleon, but because sophistic language is very evident in their arguments, it is reasonable to suppose that they were young men of the elite class, like Alkibiades, who sat at the feet of sophists and learned the arts of persuasion.[89] Kleon's claim to power arises from the established and enforced nomoi of Athens while the power of the young elite, like Alkibiades, comes from physis: they believed they were born to rule. Birds emphasizes a difference between Athens and its nomoi and Nephelokokkygia and its lack of them.

By alluding to these differences throughout the play and in the Prometheus-scene, Aristophanes encourages his audience to look towards elite rule for success in the Peloponnesian war and, more generally, in political and social affairs in Athens. This is a difference between Peisetairos' type of rule and the demagogic rule still common in Athens at the time of the play.[90] In Frogs (718-20) Aristophanes puts it most strongly when the chorus sings: pollãki! g' ≤m›n ¶dojen ≤ pÒli! pepony°nai/ taÈtÚn e‡! te t«n polit«n toÁ! kaloÊ! te kégayoÁ!/ e‡! te térxa›on nÒmi!ma ka‹ tÚ kainÚn xru!€on. Dover, in his commentary on the play, paraphrases, "put your trust in men of distinguished ancestry, rejecting the 'first-generation politicians' of whose forebears you know nothing."[91] Although these lines should be read in the context of those 'nobles' disfranchised for their part in the oligarchic coup of 411, Aristophanes uses similar language elsewhere. Knights, performed in 424, nineteen years before Frogs, is a good example. At 225-8 one of the slaves (Demosthenes), says, éll' efi!‹n flpp∞!, êndre! égayo€...ka‹ t«n polit«n ofl kalo€ te kégayo€.... Peisetairos, though an older man as the comic genre seems to require of its protagonists, is among this elite class as Birds 33 indicates, ≤me›! d¢ ful∞i ka‹ g°nei tim≈menoi. While I do not think Peisetairos is, for example, meant to 'be' Alkibiades, I do think that Peisetairos represents the aristocratic elite, to whom in the course of Birds Aristophanes is urging his audience to look for leadership.

Modern critics of Birds argue that the play is either a commentary on, and so a chastisement of, Athenian political and imperial ambition, or that the play has little connection with Athens and was meant to be a humorous aside to the affairs of the mutilation, profanation, and Sicilian expedition.[92] One critic, however, has argued that with Birds Aristophanes is not warning Athens of potentially hubristic actions with regard to expanding her empire but encouraging them in the direction that they had already taken with regard to the war and the empire.[93] Peisetairos and his accomplishment in Nephelokokkygia, then, represent the possibilities that could come about for Athenians if they would (re)turn to elite rule. In the next chapter I will argue that the embassy-scene with Poseidon, Herakles and a Triballian god is a comic reflection in miniature of the dynamics between aristocratic and democratic rule. Peisetairos is not meant to remind the audience of someone like Alkibiades as Süvern postulated;[94] rather, he is an amalgam of two classes of elite aristocrats in Athens.

These two groups are represented by both the old and the young.[95] The older generation of elite, to whom the demos had traditionally turned for handling affairs of the state, had by the late fifth century become hesitant to participate in civic duties. This to a large degree was due to the euthynai or audits that they underwent every year for public office. Their fear that a sycophant would wrongly accuse them of misappropriating funds and that they in turn would be discredited, drove them away from active service and into becoming apragmones.[96] Peisetairos' own fear of dikai[97] and debt, and his desire to find a place different from Athens in these respects, resemble strongly that of the older elite in Athens at the time.

Peisetairos, however, also shares similarities with the group of young elites, like Alkibiades. These were the same wealthy young men who had sat at the feet of sophists and learned how, as Strepsiades tries and Pheidippides does in Clouds, to argue any case to victory.[98] Peisetairos' own sophistic abilities are quite evident throughout the play but are best emphasized by Tereus' introduction of both him and Euelpides to the chorus of birds: êndre går lept∆ logi!tå deËr' éf›xyon …! §m°. (318).[99] But unlike Sokrates in Clouds, Peisetairos uses his abilities as a rhetorician to establish a new order for himself and the birds. He does not use sophistic cunning to get out of paying debts, or deny the existence of the gods. This he might have done in Athens. But he abandons that world and creates his own in which debt no longer exists (êneu ballant€ou, 157) and the gods are forcefully ousted. Ultimately, Peisetairos is a combination of the two sides of the elite class.[100] He comprises the older generation's desire to distance itself from the demagogic trudge of Kleons who would prevent them from governing by imposing intimidating if not fraudulent audits; and the younger generation's desire to expand the empire (a desire opposite to that of the older generation, like Perikles). Accordingly, by presenting Peisetairos in this way, Aristophanes was able to appeal to a larger portion of his audience, a portion that would have contained not only old and young aristocrats but also middle class Athenians, some of whom probably sided with Aristophanes' ongoing battle against demagogic rule of Athens.

With Birds Aristophanes invited the Athenians to contemplate a new type of city characterized by the absence of radical democracy while the tide of enthusiasm was still high and there was still hope to win the war.[101] Only in 413, one year after the production of Birds and immediately following their defeat in Sicily, did the Athenians turn to the upper class, by instituting the ten probouloi[102] and later in 411 the short-lived 500 — and then only in desperation.

Prometheus and Peisetairos represent a polarity between Athenian nomoi and the nature (physis) of Nephelokokkygia. The former creates culture, a gift of Prometheus, and all the things Peisetairos runs from: money, debt, lawsuits, etc., all personified by the people he kicks out of Nephelokokkygia. The latter represents the sufferance of one's natural inclinations, whether to eat, crap, or rule. Nephelokokkygia is an anti-Athens whose cultural benefactor and benefits must in turn be contrary to that of Athens itself; what Peisetairos provides for the birds is directly opposite to what Prometheus supplied to mortals: an end to meat sacrifices and so the reunion of man and beast; the reunion of man and divinity; the introduction to man of a beneficial woman. Birds is a play about creating a new city with utopian, golden age qualities that will be ruled by Peisetairos, the ultimate type of Athenian leader, who bridges the gap between old and young aristocrats. The embassy-scene shows us how effective Peisetairos is in his new city.

[1] Sommerstein Birds coined this word in his translation.

[2] Merry and Kock-Schroeder miss a good deal of the humor by only saying that Prometheus is selfish and concerned for his own "Sicherheit."

[3] For veiled women, cf. Boardman ABF, figures 81 (Dionysos and Ariadne), 90 (Menelaos and Helen), 118,1 (Dionysos and Ariadne, Oakeshott Painter); Boardman ARFArch, figures 50.2 (Olympian goddesses at the introduction of Herakles to Olympos), 131,2 (woman playing aulos), 295.1 (Hera and Prometheus himself!, each, however, appearing with only part of the himation touching the very backs of their heads); Boardman ARFCl, figures 41, 52, 179, 247, 249(?), 255, 296, 297(?), 308, 382(?); Trendall RFVItal, figures 110 (Medea's recognition of Theseus), 182 (the Tantalidai), 367 (Alkmene), and 432 (bridal scenes). Trendall Illustrations, III.1,2; III.1,5 and III.1,4 (Elektra dejected); III.2,4 (Antigone); III.3,8 (Alkmene); III.3,19 (Hekuba); IV,18 (from Middle Comedy) and IV,28 (Helen being escorted to her wedding). For young boys, cf. Boardman ARFCl, fig. 79 and Trendall RFVItal, fig. 16 (on which Trendall notes, p. 21, that "the himation tends to be drawn more frequently up on to the back of the head." All these boys are probably eromenoi. Jesper Svenbro, Phrasikleia (Ithaca and New York 1993) p. 194f., discusses fig. 79 within the context of reading and passive homosexuality. We should also note N 735 and 740 where Strepsiades has covered his head up while in bed in order to masturbate and not "be distracted from thought by sights and sounds (S and Dover ad loc.). Sokrates, too, at Pl. Phdr. 237A speaks veiled in order not to see Phaidros. All these examples (except for the one of Prometheus and Hera which might be excused anyway) represent women lamenting, women in situations of marriage, homosexuality, or, as in the case of Strepsiades, autoerotic activity.

[4] Discussed by Stone Costume, p. 202-3.

[5] Henderson Lysistrata, p. 136 on 529-38.

[6] Fr. 332 PCG = Pollux 7.95 (lines 1-15) and Clement of Alexandria Pedagogue 2.124.1 (2-14).

[7] Cf. Dunbar, p. 698, on 1508-9: "A parasol is a comically incongruous item for Prometheus to be carrying, for its use at Athens seems to have been a female preserve…."

[8] Cf. esp. S on Ach. 1551: ta›! kanhfÒroi! !kiãdeion ka‹ d€fron ékolouye› ti! ¶xou!a, and Suda s.v. !kafhfÒroi, "Demetrius in the third book of On Legislation says that the law enjoined metics to carry basins in processions and their daughters to carry water jugs and parasols," trans. in Csapo and Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor 1995), III,21B, p. 114.

[9] Burkert HN, 144 and Parke Festivals 156ff.

[10] So Dunbar, p. 698 on 1508-9. Cf. the satyr who holds a parasol for a woman in Deubner AF, Plate 18: he describes the scene thus: "Die Basilinna auf dem Weg zum Limnaion,…." If Peisetairos holding a parasol for Prometheus is meant to recall a scene such as this, one might consider further the argument of E. Craik, "One for the pot. Aristophanes' Birds and the Anthesteria," Eranos 85 (1987) 25-34 who compares activities at the Anthesteria with those in Birds, and especially the marriage of the archon's wife (for this occasion called Basilinna) to Dionysos, the ceremony for which took place at the sanctuary of Dionysos en Limnais, located on the southern slope of the Acropolis.

[11] In addition to the scholion on Ach. quoted above, cf. Thesm. 730ff.

[12] Sommerstein Birds ad loc. notes that "there is only one sort of diphros that in everyday life was regularly carried out of houses: a night-stool or commode"; cf. also Henderson, MM2, p. 19 (no. 410) and p. 250 for an addendum with a similar sentiment. But the d€fro! must first imply the stool carried by non-citizen girls at the processions and then, for the joke, the night-stool.

[13] There is the passing reference in Romer's "Good Intentions," in Gregory Dobrov (ed.), Aristophanes' Birds and Nephelokokkugia. Charting the Comic Polis, Papers of the APA Seminar (Syracuse 1990) p. 31: Prometheus "hopes to escape Zeus' tyranny by passing as a young girl serving in the Panathenaic procession." Romer is right to think that Prometheus looks like a girl (or woman, as Prometheus' reference to the Thesmophoria may indicate), and here I will discuss why, beyond the effect of cowardliness, Aristophanes made Prometheus look feminine.

[14] There may be more mockery of Prometheus in addition to his clothing. Peisetairos' comment at 1548, nØ tÚn D€' ée‹ d∞ta yeomi!Ø! ¶fu!, is an obvious jab at Prometheus' troubled relationship with the gods. The words that follow, T€mvn kayarÒ!, (ascribed, I think rightly, by Kock-Schroeder and Dunbar to Peisetairos, not Prometheus) are also jabs. While Timon may have been justified in his hatred of men, as Prometheus in his hatred of the gods, he was nonetheless unapproachable, é€druto!, ÉErinÊvn éporr≈j (Lys. 808/9, 812). The character of Phrynichos' Monotropos, produced the same year as Birds, is a similar figure (cf. PCG frag. 18), as are the chorus of Pherekrates Agrioi. (For additional ancient sources of Timon-like figures cf. Henderson Lysistrata ad 808, p. 172 and Dunbar ad 1548-9, p. 708-9.) Furthermore, is it chance that Timon's pÊrgo! is said (Pausanias 1,30,3) to be near the Akademeia where Prometheus himself had an altar and where torch races in his honor began? Still further, Prometheus comes on stage immediately after the appearance and mention of very questionable figures: the sycophant; Kleonymos who is ridiculed for his cowardliness; and Orestes (perhaps the Thessalian king who later came to live in Athens) who, ridiculed for his theft of clothes, represents superstitions about meeting dead heroes of the past who have the potential for being trouble-makers (Dunbar, n. 712, p. 453 and Hubbard, Mask of Comedy, p. 177). This line of argument calls into question the validity of Prometheus' status as 'culture hero', though his torch races are honorific. See W. den Boer, "Prometheus and Progress," for the argument that Prometheus is not the culture hero he is thought to be.

[15] For the archaeological references see Burkert GR, p. 442 n. 4.

[16] Cf. M. Detienne, "The Violence of Wellborn Ladies," in Marcel Detienne & Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks (Chicago & London 1989) n. 41, p. 244; he cites Deubner AF, plate 2, a lekythos with a woman holding a kanoun in one hand and a piglet in another — in the background are torches which Parke Festivals, p. 87 suggests were used for evening rituals. Although Deubner lists this lekythos as a representation of the Skira, Detienne is skeptical. The scholiast on Lukian, one of our main sources for the Thesmophoria, suggests that some of the things that went on at the Thesmophoria were the same as those at the Skira: cf. Deubner AF, p. 40f. for an analysis of the scholion.

[17] Plut. Dem. 30,5 cites the gloominess (!kuyrvpotãth) of the Nh!te€a.

[18] = êgno!, cf., e.g., Hymn. Hom. Merc. 410 and Arist. Hist. an. 27a9.

[19] Arist. Gen. an. 728a 18-21.774a 2-3; Detienne, "Violence," p. 147; cf. ibid. n. 115; and Burkert GR, p. 443 n. 26.

[20] So Burkert GR, p. 243 and Parke Festivals, p. 86.

[21] The ancient evidence for the aischrologia is collected by Burkert at GR, p. 443 n. 33.

[22] Cf. Parke Festivals, p. 86 and the Hymn. Hom. Cer. 193ff.

[23] Cf., e.g., Thesm. 299 where Kalligeneia is invoked with Demeter, Kore, Ploutos, Koutrophos, Ge, Hermes and the Graces.

[24] But did the audience know what happened during the festival? Aelian fr. 44 Hercher preserves the story of Battos, king of Kyrene, who wanted to see what happened at the festival but having been admitted was brutally slain by the female participants (a not uncommon result of the mythic counterpart of Greek rituals). While much of what happened was unknown to men — note the scene at Thesm. 626ff. where Mnesilochos is grilled about what was shown (§de€knuto) to the women — it is not unreasonable to assume that what we can know today is at least what the men of fifth-century Athens knew. We have, e.g., Thesm. 698ff. where the Relative, whose true male identity has just been discovered, snatches a wineskin/child and threatens to kill it (an obvious parody of Euripides' Telephos): éll' §nyãd' §p‹ t«n mhr€vn/plhg¢n maxa€r& tªde foin€a! fl°ba!/ kayaimat≈!ei b≈mon (693-5). Taplin, Comic Angels (Oxford 1993) argues convincingly that a phlyax vase, 'the Würzburg Telephos,' was made to reflect this very scene (see plate 11.4). From this we can see the basic elements (printed above in bold) of a meat sacrifice, and therefore that some kind of meat sacrifice probably took place at the festival. Detienne, "Violence," pp. 143-4. What we know, and so what has been presented here, is no doubt what most men in Athens themselves could know. The other elements Aristophanes and others could not and would not bring onto the stage. The nature of the fasting, however, must have been know. For just as the joke in Thesmophoriazousai quoted above relies on the audience's knowledge that sacrifices took place during the festival, so too knowledge of the nature of the fasting must be presupposed in order for the audience to understand the joke in Birds.

[25] It should be remembered that the appearance of characters in comedies and tragedies was probably never a surprise, since the celebration of both the City Dionysia and the Lenaia included a Proagon in which the dramatists presented the lÒgoi of their plays. The Proagon took place on the 8th of Elaphebolion, leaving the audience time to ruminate, if it wished, on just how the author would present his plot. (It is easy to imagine lively discussion among theatergoers.) For the evidence, cf. DFA2 67-8. Should this also be kept in mind when characters are mentioned for the first time (e.g. Prometheus at 1504, Poseidon at 1614, and Herakles at 1586) and when the hero(ine) is named?; cf. Olson CQ 42 (1992) 304-19.

[26] For references, see Dunbar, p. 771.

[27] See Appendix II for referenes and fuller discussion.

[28] Cf. Appendix IV for references in Birds to these battles.

[29] Cf. Eur. Hec. 466-74 and IT 222-4. Hecuba may date to the 420s because Clouds apparently parodies Hec. 161 at 718ff. and Hec. 172-3 at 1165-66.

[30] MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens (Oxford 1995), p. 226-7. Cf. also Bees, "Zu Aristophanes, 'Vögel' 1197f. = fr. adesp. 47," WJA 18 (1982) p. 127, who refutes Hofmann's (p. 125) claim that Aristophanes made the basic function of the Titanomachy and Ornithomachy the same: "Doch die Situation des Prometheus in den 'Vögeln' ist natürlich eine andere als im PV." In Birds Prometheus is one of the Olympians and is affected by the blockade just as they are.

[31] Dunbar, p. 8.

[32] Cf. esp. Bees, "Zu Aristophanes, 'Vögel' 1197f. = fr. adesp. 47," who rejects the idea of Aischylos as author of PV but does not discuss the relevance of this in relation to Birds; Herington, op. cit., 236-243.

[33] Peter Rau, Paratragoidia (München 1967), pp. 175ff. Dunbar, ad 199-200, p. 200 lists as possible "echoes" of the PV, 654, 685ff., 1197, 1500 (which must be a misprint since the line, boulutÚ! µ perait°rv;, has no obvious connection with PV and is not discussed as such by Dunbar), and 1547 (which we will discuss). But of 654 she says, "it is risky to see here one of the echoes of PV in Birds." 685 and 1197 are discussed below.

[34] Bold passages are echoes between PV and Birds; underlined passages between Birds and other literature; in some cases words are both bold and underlined.

[35] 1197 = ad. fr. 47 in Nauck2. Nauck, Kock-Schroeder and van de Sande Bakhuzyen in his De parodia in comoediis Aristophanis of 1887 were among the first to suggest this.

[36] Herington, op. cit., p. 237.

[37] We might also add the references to the frailty of humanity in Semonides (fr. 1 West), Mimnermos (fr. 2 West which is an imitation of the Iliad passage); Solon (frs. 13 and 14 West), Simonides (fr. 520); and Soph. Aj. 125-6 where Odysseus says, ır« går ≤mç! oÈd¢n ˆnta! éllÚ plØn/e‡dvl' ˜!oiper z«men µ koÊfhn !kiãn. Cf. also Hermann Fraenkel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy (Oxford 1975), p. 530 for further references.

[38] Blaydes p. 375 on 1182ff. and also van Leewen p. 184 , n. 12.

[39] Fr. 311 Nauck2, yÊ!a! d¢ xo›ron tÒnde t∞! aÈt∞! ÍÒ!,/ ∂ pollã m' §n dÒmoi!in e‡rga!tai kakå/ donoË!a ka‹ tr°pou!a turb' ênv kãtv.

[40] Cf. most recently Bees, Zur Datierung des Prometheus Desmotes (Stuttgart 1993) 250-1. It is his contention also that PV dates to sometime in the 430s. So also West JHS 99 (1979).

[41] Most recently, e.g., Zuntz (in a posthumously published article in HSPh 95 (1993) 107-11) has argued rather passionately not only for Aischylos as author but also for a very early date: sometime just after Aischylos' first production in 495. Pro Aischylos: Herington, The Author of the Prometheus Bound (Austin 1970); Suzanne Saïd, Sophiste et tyran ou le problème du Prométée enchaîné (Paris 1985); Maria Pia Pattoni, L'autenticità del Prometeo incantenato di Eschilo (Pisa 1987); contra: Griffith, The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound (Cambridge 1977) West, op. cit.; Bees, op. cit.

[42] The most recent treatment of sophistic elements in PV are Benedetto Marzullo's impressive I Sofismi di Prometeo (Florence 1993) and Saïd, op. cit. For a more balanced account see Griffith, Authenticity, pp. 217-221.

[43] All the pertinent texts are collect by Guthrie, The Sophists (Cambridge 1971), pp. 79-84.

[44] Cf. Guthrie, op. cit., p. 63.

[45] Fr. 6 Nauck2; does Moschion date, at the earliest, to the third century? Cf. Lesky, History of Greek Literature (New York 1966), p. 632.

[46] Cf. also Gorgias Pal. 30.

[47] This appears to be the case since fr. 171,23 PCG expresses the idea that, since Zeus is no longer in control, d∞mo! d¢ krate›.

[48] Walther Kraus' art. in RE Supp. 23, s.v. "Prometheus", 682 states that this person is Prometheus. Malcolm Heath, "Aristophanes and His Rivals," G & R 37 (1990), p. 148 suggests that the person mentioned is Ploutos himself. Herington, "Birds and Prometheia," p. 237 n. 8 says that this fr. should remind us of a fr. from PV where Prometheus addresses the Titan chorus as Titanum suboles, socia nostri sanguinis (Cicero's translation, Tusc. 2,23).

[49] The antiquity of the Prometheus cult is difficult to determine. Our sole reference comes from the scholiast at Soph. OC 56. For the cult of Prometheus in Athens, cf. Kraus' art. in RE Supp. 23; and now Paolo Pisi's Prometeo nel culto attico (Roma 1990) esp. pp. 21-2. Cf. also IG I2 84 (421/0?) which mentions that the torch races at the Hephaisteia should be set up as those at the Prometheia.

[50] Paus. 1,30,2.

[51] Deubner AF, 211.

[52] Pisi, Prometeo nel culto attico, pp. 50-1.

[53] Cf. Dunbar introduction to 1495-1552, p. 694, "it is very likely that for Athenians, … the ingenious, cunning craftsman … was a favourite god, and that Peisetairos' greeting…reflects Athenian sentiment."

[54] The locus classicus for this is Thuk. 2,41,1 where Perikles calls Athens tØn t∞! ÑEllãdo! pa€deu!in.

[55] which Sommerstein prints in his text.

[56] The others, one will remember, are a begging poet (treated differently, see somewhere in my footnotes), Meton, a father-beater, Kinesias and a sycophant.

[57] Contra Dunbar ad loc. but suggested by Zimmermann, Untersuchungen zur Form und dramatischen Technik der Aristophanischen Komödie (Königstein 1985), ii, p. 185, q.v. generally for these lyric passages.

[58] Here, markers ÍperploÊtou xlid∞! (466). This is itself interesting in view of Aristophanes' portrayal of Pheidippides in Clouds and the common man's (in Clouds Strepsiades') troubles with spoiled children.

[59] Frank Romer, in his "Good Intentions and the ıdÚ! ≤ §! kÒraka!," p. 27, builds his prospective from the play as a whole (and not from a specific scene as we are doing) and comes up with the same idea: "[Aristophanes in Birds] had reaffirmed the idea that human life is somehow cyclical, that however much things change, they return to something like their original condition, that the new is old." The establishment of Nephelokokkygia seeks to break this cycle. Cf. also Hes. Op. 89f. which emphatically states that before Prometheus and the creation of women, pr‹n m¢n går z≈e!kon §p‹ xyon‹ fËl' ényr≈pvn/nÒ!fin êter te kak«n ka‹ êter xalepo›o pÒnoio…; this itself precedes his discussion of the golden age.

[60] Cf. esp. 40f. where Peisetairos (I follow Sommerstein's line attribution here and not Dunbar's) complains that ÉAyhna›oi d' ée‹/§p‹ t«n dik«n õdou!' pãnta tÚn b€on. See below for discussion of nomoi in Birds.

[61] "Aristophanes clearly intends its [yuhla€] original sense of 'parts of victim burnt in sacrifice,'" Dunbar, n. 1515-20, p. 700.

[62] Cf. esp. the epirrhema and antepirrhema of the first parabasis. Nephelokokkygia is, for example, a place where Wrong Argument of Clouds would enjoy living: at Nub. 1075 he mentions tå! t∞! fÊ!ev! énãgkh! (falling in love and committing adultery) and at 1077, §mo‹ d' ımil«n/xr« t∞i fÊ!ei, !k€tra, g°la mhd¢n afi!xron.

[63] Nephelokokkygia, however, should not be confused with the Eldorado of Pherekrates Agrioi (produced in 420). The two Athenians who desert Athens for this place, do not, as far as the fragments tell, transform their topia as Peisetairos and Euelpides do. This play seems rather to criticize those who opt for nature over civilization, as Protagoras complains in Plato's dialogue (Prot. 327c-d): ˜!ti! !oi édik≈tato! fa€netai ênyrvpo! t«n §n nÒmoi! ... d€kaion aÈtÚn e‰nai ... efi d°oi aÈtÚn kr€ne!yai prÚ! ényr≈pou! oÂ! mÆte paide€a §!t‹n mÆte dika!rtÆria mÆte nÒmoi... . For a similar discussion, cf. Dobrov, "Dramatic Sources," pp. 18-9.

[64] Guthrie, In the Beginning (Ithaca 1957) p. 71.

[65] Reckford, Aristophanes' Old-and-New Comedy (Chapel Hill 1987) 312ff. offers an insightful interpretation of utopias and concludes against modern criticisms of utopias (e.g. Jean-Claude Carrière's Le carnaval et la politique [Paris 1979]) that Aristophanes' Birds creates "a Utopia Atheniensis with a great power to reconcile opposites and to look hopefully toward the future" (p. 328; emphasis added). For a different perspective on the utopia of Birds, cf. Heberlein, Pluthygieia (Frankfurt am Main 1980), pp. 48-9.

[66] Theog. 507-616 and Op. 42-105. An important analysis of Prometheus in both poems is J-P. Vernant, "The Myth of Prometheus in Hesiod," and "Sacrificial and Alimentary Codes in Hesiod's Myth of Prometheus," in R. L. Gordon (ed.), Myth, Religion and Society, (Cambridge 1981) pp. 43-79. For a general overview of Prometheus, cf. Gantz, Early Greek Myth (Baltimore and London 1993), pp. 152ff.

[67] I do not present the other representations of Prometheus here (which are less relevant but still illuminating) but more conveniently in Appendix II.

[68] Vernant, "The Myth of Prometheus in Hesiod," p. 55: "But distance from the gods implies as a corollary distance from the animals. What the myth of the institution of sacrifice defines is the very status of man between animals and gods."

[69] Cf. Bowie, Aristophanes Myth and Ritual (Cambridge 1993), pp. 162-3 for a similar opinion.

[70] A fitting passage that demonstrates the benefits birds can offer is 704ff. where the birds claim that because of them men can have sexual relations with their male lovers, and then that all the greatest things (pãnta tå m°gi!ta) come from the birds: all the seasons which tell humans when to wear what clothes; all prophecy and fore-knowledge of an enterprises' success; they will be Muses, Fair Winds for sailing, and Seasons favorable to the crop.

[71] Frr. 171, 172 and 176 PCG. B. Zimmermann, "Utopisches u. Utopie in den Komödien des Aristophanes" WJA 9 (1983) pp. 57-61 (with bibliography for discussion of the golden age in Greek comedy in n. 10, to which may be added D. Sutton, Self and Society in Aristophanes [Washington, DC 1980] pp. 58-65; and Reckford, Aristophanes' Old-and-New Comedy [Chapel Hill 1987] pp. 312ff.) discusses these fragments in the larger context of all Aristophanes' extant plays. Zimmermann also notes (p. 61) the connection — which he places in the 4th c. — between "staatstheoretischen Element" and the "utopischen Motive": "nachdem durch die Diskussion der Sophisten der nÒmo! als Objekt der Skepsis freigegeben worden war, war es nunmehr möglich, neue nÒmoi, neue Verfassungen zukonstruieren." He argues that town-planners such as Hippodamos of Miletos influenced "einerationalistische, konstrukhafte Einstellung." He then presents Ekklesiazousai and Plato's Republic as "die ersten für uns greifbaren Verbindungen dieser verschiedenen Traditionsstrange vor: das aus der sophistischen Tradition stammende rationalistisch-staatstheoretische Element war mit dem volkstümlichen, eudaimonistischen Element eine Verbindung zur Utopie eingegangen." But, as our discussion will reveal, Birds — with its allusions to the antithesis nomos-physis, Meton (in Birds made into a kind of Hippodamos since he is nowhere else a town-planner), and the "eudaimonistische Element" — also falls into this discussion and the mentality that was popular from the late 5th century on.

[72] Fr. 1 PCG.

[73] Fr. 113 PCG.

[74] Fr. 172 PCG.

[75] Konstan, Greek Comedy and Ideology (Oxford 1995) p. 35: "In their primitive or natural condition, … the region that they [the birds] inhabit has an anomian quality."

[76] Life without a money purse is quite antithetical to life in Athens since Peisetairos and Euelpides were fleeing, after all, from the remuneration of debt (cf. 115) and the threat of lawsuits (cf. 40f.), which in the case of a wealthy Athenian could have meant loss of property (one need only compare the Attic Stelai and the proscriptions there of those who were convicted of mutilating the herms and profaning the Eleusinian mysteries). Dunbar, ad loc. p. 184: "Not using money has the double advantage of removing both falsehood from human relations and also the risk of being given bad coins."

[77] Cf., e.g., Alkman's famous boast (Page fr. 14): Wo‰da d' Ùrn€xvn nÒmv!/pant«n.

[78] 1345ff. For nomos as melody, cf. 210: 'the melodies of holy songs' and 745: 'holy melodies' for Pan. For nomos as law or custom, cf. 518: it is the nomos in Athens of sacrificing and placing the offering in the hand of the god (i.e. in the hand of the statue); 755 (an important line for our argument here): 'everything that is in Athens shameful and discouraged by nomos, is just fine here with us birds'; 757: 'if in Athens it is by nomos shameful to beat your father, then it's fine here with us birds'; 1038: the decree-sellers brings new nomoi to Nephelokokkygia; 1044: Peisetairos tells the decree-seller to leave with his nomoi and at 1045 tells him, tongue in cheek, he will show him some pretty painful nomoi; and 1650, 1656, 1660: Peisetairos explains Athenian inheritance nomoi to Herakles.

[79] Line 37. Other references: at 117 about Tereus' change in nature from man to bird; at 371 about humans (here Peisetairos and Euelpides) being natural enemies of birds (but friendly, nonetheless, in their intentions); at 685 that the nature of humans is feeble; at 691 the chorus says it will tell the audience about the nature of birds and the genealogy of the gods; and lastly at 1569 Poseidon wonders whether the Triballian is a Laispodias by nature.

[80] What is given here is only a short overview of what can be found in more detail in the following works. F. Heinimann, Nomos und Physis (Basel 1945), esp. chapter 3; chapters 4 and 5 of Guthrie's In the Beginning, and chapter 4 of his The Sophists; M. Ostwald, "Nature versus Law, Relativism and the Origins of Society," and Ostwald Sovereignty 250-273; G. B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge 1981), chapter 10.

[81] esp. Anaxagoras, Demokritos and Archelaus.

[82] Hippias and Thrasymachos may also be included.

[83] Guthrie, The Sophists, p. 112.

[84] Cf. esp. Pl. Prt. 320c8-322d5 whose ideas probably come from Protagoras' treatise "On the Original State of Man."

[85] For the debate at Mytilene, cf. Thuk. 3.36ff.; for the one at Melos, cf. 5.84ff.

[86] Thuk. 3.37.3. Cf. also the line quoted from Pl. Prt. above.

[87] Thuk. 3.45.7.

[88] Thuk. 5.105. Kallikles and Antiphon promoted this line of argument against nomos. Guthrie, The Sophists, pp. 101-16.

[89] Ostwald Sovereignty, p. 310: "The epistemological difference between opinion (dÒj˙) and certain belief (≤goÊmeya !af«!) is used to make the human intellect a more reliable guide to action than belief in the divine. … we may infer that the Athenian ambassadors had sat at the feet of the sophists, that they were members of the upper class who had been young in the 420s and had sufficient wealth to pay high fees for their instruction."

[90] See chapter 3 (Triballos).

[91] Dover Frogs, p. 281.

[92] For the former cf. esp. Arrowsmith, "Aristophanes' Birds: The Fantasy Politics of Eros," Arion 1.1 (1973/4) and for the latter Whitman's Comic Hero (Cambridge, MA 1964), pp.167-199.

[93] Henderson, "Peisetairos and the Athenian Elite." Cf. also his "Comic Hero versus Political Élite," in A. H. Sommerstein et al. (eds.), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (Bari 1993) esp. p. 316: "Why should its audience not have seen in Peisetairos the ideal leader, one who turns his initially scattered and apathetic followers, the once-great birds, into a united and powerful demos and who wins a mighty empire?" Reckford, Aristophanes' Old-and-New Comedy, comes close in sentiment without, however, emphasizing Peisetairos' role; cf. p. 342.

[94] Süvern, Essays on "The Birds" of Aristophanes, trans. W. Hamilton (London 1835 [orig. 1827]).

[95] This older elite group should not be confused with the older middle and lower class Athenians who stayed home during the war and like Philokleon in Wasps obtained an almost livable salary from jury duty in the law courts. There are several important publications on the generation gap so obvious in late fifth-century Athens: W. G. Forrest, "The Athenian Generation Gap," YCS 24 (1975) 37-52; L.B. Carter, The Quiet Athenian (Oxford 1986), esp. the chapters, "Noble Youths," and "Rich Quietists;" Ostwald Sovereignty, 229-250. E.W. Handley, "Aristophanes and the Generation Gap," in A. H. Sommerstein et al. (eds.), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (Bari 1993) 417-430.

[96] Cf., e.g. the passage at Eq. 259-65 in which an apragmon, who has run off to the Chersonese to avoid audits, is summoned back by Kleon to face charges simply because he has money to be exploited.

[97] Cf. esp. Av. 40-1.

[98] A locus classicus for this is Aristophanes' Banqueteers (produced in 427 by Kallistratos) fr. 205 PCG, here with Henderson's trans. (Birth of Comedy); 'A' is a young man, a son (?) while 'B' is an old man (the father?):

(A) But you're just a tomb, and perfume, and wreaths.

(B) What do you mean, tomb? You got this from Lysistratos.

(A) And surely, I'd guess, you will be tripped up by time.

(B) This 'tripped up' you got from the orators.

(A) These words will fail you someday.

(B) This 'fail you' <you got> from Alkibiades.

(A) Why do you suspect and slander gentlemen

for cultivating fine-and-dandyhood?

(B) Wow! My budding Thrasymakhos,

which of the lawyers talks this marvelous talk?

[99] Furthermore, !vfro!Ênh, one of the qualities Peisetairos will acquire from Basileia, "had become a political slogan by the end of the 5th c., especially used by oligarchic parties… who saw democrats as prone to license…through their passion for freedom and equality," Dunbar, n. 1539-41, p. 706. Again, Kallikles and the 'upholders' of physis would have argued that these democrats were the weak using nomoi in order to be equal to an aristocracy bent toward oligarchic rule.

[100] "True, Aristophanic heroes, as opposed to Aristophanic villains, never represent particular individuals but are always fictitious composites," Henderson, "Peisetairos and the Athenian Elite," p. 10.

[101] Though enthusiasm might have begun to wane with Alkibiades' defection to the Spartans when, before the performance of Birds, the Salaminia went to Sicily to recall him.