Throughout this chapter I discuss how Aristophanes' presentation of the divine embassy and its members further contributes to the play's consideration of rule and rulers; how Poseidon is a failure in the arena of politics that Peisetairos commands; how comments about the Thracian god Triballos conjure thoughts of, and make criticisms about, young upstart politicians; how through his presentation of the divine in this scene and throughout the play Aristophanes reveals the creation of not only a new state, but also a new state with a new relationship to religion and divinity; and finally how convincing Herakles to vote against Poseidon is Peisetairos' final triumph of persuasion.

As a whole, this last part of the play "shows how the gods will be made to surrender and what the extent of the birds' victory over them will be."[1] How are the gods made to surrender? On the one hand it is due to Peisetairos' cunning tongue. But it is more than this. In the Prometheus chapter we saw that Nephelokokkygia is a new city with golden age qualities, a reversal of Prometheus' original efforts for humankind. With the embassy-scene we see how well the governmental organization of Nephelokokkygia operates. I shall suggest that Peisetairos is finally able to defeat the gods because the system of government in Nephelokokkygia is superior to that among gods and humans. Democracy governs the gods (1570ff.), while Peisetairos is tÊranno! (1707) over the birds. Because of this difference the conspicuously low-class Triballian and Herakles are able to outvote Poseidon, who shows great frustration at their behavior. As tÊranno!, Peisetairos is the embodiment of the potential latent in all Athenians. He reaches the height of freedom in a state of his own construction. He is not meant to be condemned by the audience for his accomplishment, but meant to be an idealized hero, as are all Aristophanic heroes (see below pp. 121-3). The reference at 1074-5 to a law in Athens at the time of the play concerning the 'slaying' of dead tyrants reflects a fear still prevalent in Athens that democracy might fall to tyranny. Indeed, the mutilation of the herms was considered an organized effort by oligarchic 'tyrants' to take over Athens,[2] though it is now generally thought to be the work of clubs of young aristocratic men like Alkibiades with no intention of tyranny.[3] In Wasps (487-99), Aristophanes has Bdelykleon ridicule the use of tyranny as mere political propaganda against seemingly oligarchic actions.[4] One may compare the descriptions of Peisistratos' (Peisetairos' namesake?) rule in Aristotle's Athenian Constitution (16,7), ≤ turann€! ı •p‹ KronoË b€o!, and of his sons at [Plato] Hipparchos 229b; though descriptions of tyranny after the killing of Hipparchos turn ugly.[5] One scholar in his recent discussion of the ideology of tyranny in Greece states that "Athens's interest in eleutheria and its incorporation into the Athenian body politic suggests a strong investment in the public memory of tyrants, whose freedom … functions as a conceptual model for the Athenian idea of citizenship."[6] All of Aristophanes' plays suggest fanciful political and social reforms through the actions and accomplishments of the comic hero. As I suggested in the Prometheus chapter, Aristophanes urges that trusting the best may be better than relying on the masses to rule a city.

The climax of Birds begins with an embassy-scene (1565-1693) in which Poseidon, Herakles, and a representative from the Triballian gods of Thrace[7] arrive at Nephelokokkygia to negotiate an end to Peisetairos' blockade. Leading up to this scene, Peisetairos' plan has taken two forms: first, to have the birds establish a city (172), then to rule men and starve out the gods (185-6). The plan was slightly modified at 477-8 and 554, where Peisetairos desires to reinstate the birds as the rightful rulers of the universe over the Olympians. Having convinced the birds of his plan, established his city, won over the human population, 'defeated' his first divine opponent (Iris), learned the secret of Zeus' power from Prometheus, Peisetairos in the embassy-scene discusses the re-establishment of sacrifices with the gods — who themselves have no idea that he also wants Zeus' scepter. Peisetairos himself, however, is interested in establishing both the birds' rule and his own.[8]

When the embassy[9] arrives in Nephelokokkygia, Peisetairos is cooking up two dissident birds,[10] who had risen up against (§pani!tãmenoi) the bird demos. This quasi-cannibalism is a demonstration of how effectively the new ruler deals with rebellion in this newly established society. The affront against the bird demos is quelled with no consequences, and is in no way shocking.[11] The text is clear that the bird demos voted for this penalty: to›! dhmotiko›!in Ùrn°oi! ¶dojan édike›n (1584-85).

Furthermore, Peisetairos' best plan would be to distract the starving embassy from their intentions with delicious food (cf. 1602).[12] Fortunately again for Peisetairos, one of the gods is the notoriously gluttonous Herakles.[13] Peisetairos convinces them first of the benefit of a possible alliance, but with regard to Basileia he must convince Herakles (who in turn convinces the Triballian) to vote against Poseidon; this he does successfully by explaining to Herakles that when Zeus dies he will inherit nothing, but that, if he votes in favor of Peisetairos, he himself will be tÊranno! among the gods (cf. 1672-3).

The scene itself does not build from the theme of either the Titano- or Gigantomachy. Zannini-Quirini, in his recent study of the play,[14] attempts to show a transformation here of Poseidon's role in the Gigantomachy, where he is an "avversario dei Gigantes, che spinge la sua collera fino a scagliare pezzi di isole addosso ai suoi nemici" (cf. Apollod. 1,6,2), into a "mite ambasciatore" (p. 70). For Zannini-Quirini Poseidon "agisce in modo ben diverso rispetto a come, secondo la tradizione, il dio si sarebbe comportato nella repressione della rivolta dei Gigantes" (p. 71), but while he acknowledges this, his final results do not take into account particulars from the scene itself. He does make a comparison between Poseidon's anger in the Iliad toward Laomedon — for whom Poseidon, as a punishment from Zeus, built a te›xo!...eÈrÊ [and it is here that Zannini-Quirini sees a connection with the pÒli!ma of Nephelokokkygia] te ka‹ mãla kalÒn (Iliad 21,446-7) and by whom Poseidon and Apollo subsequently went unpaid — and "la sua venuta nella città degli alati" which "appare quale voluto e ridicolo ribaltamento" (p. 71). There is no need, however, to create a contrast between Poseidon's demeanor in the Gigantomachy and Birds. The clues in this scene do not point in that direction. Rather, as we shall see, they lead us to Poseidon's connection with the aristocratic class of wealthy, older men in Athens.

Hofmann[15] does consider particulars in the scene, but goes only so far. He too recognizes that "die Gemesenheit und der feierliche Ernst des Poseidon zur Komik der Handlung und der anderer beiden Personen kontrastiert..." (p. 128). But he also sees "die Gesandschaft als der Kristallisationspunkt der vorhergehenden Einzelaktionen innerhalb der Gigantomachie thematik" (p. 135; emphasis added). Both Zannini-Quirini and Hofmann situate the embassy-scene in the midst of the Gigantomachy theme, and while there can be no question about the presence of the theme in the play, Aristophanes does not make a direct effort to join this scene to the explicit references and motifs elsewhere.[16] The sparse references to the Gigantomachy are added to emphasize the magnitude of Peisetairos' fantasy; the means by which he accomplishes this are far from similar to the Gigantomachy.

What our scene does resemble is presbeiai familiar to the audience from the Peloponnesian war. This is evident from the formal way Poseidon addresses Peisetairos at 1581-2 and 1587-8.[17] It is instructive to see how some of the vocabulary in this scene is common to political language and governmental affairs. DiallagÆ, in Birds at 1532, 1577, and 1635, occurs elsewhere in extant tragedy only in Euripides, especially his Phoinissai (409?), where it is used in connection with the attempted 'reconciliation' of Polyneikes and Eteokles. It occurs in Aristophanes at Acharnians 989, Peace 1049 and Lysistrata (several times from 980-1105) only for the 'reconciliation' of Athens and Sparta. At Wasps 472 it is used for reconciliation between Bdelykleon and the chorus. Most importantly it occurs often in inscriptions describing 'reconciliation' between Athens and other cities.[18] AÈtokrãtore!, Birds 1595, is used by Thukydides at 6,8,2 where Nikias, Lamachos, and Alkibiades are described as such for their duties during the Sicilian expedition. There is also an Attic inscription[19] in which a certain Demokleides is described by the word for his duties in an Athenian colony at Brea, and it also appears in the financial decree moved by Kallias in 434-3[20] in which the bol° also has this title. KatallagÆ (Birds 1588) is another key word that appears in extant drama only at Aischylos' Septem, 767 (teleiçn går palaifãtvn érçn/ bare›ai katallaga€) of the troubles of the house of Oedipus, and here must have had harsh-sounding legal overtones. In Aristotle's' Rhetoric 1418b35 both diallagÆ and katallagÆ are used synonymously in a political sense for 'reconciliation' between two parties for their mutual benefit. Demosthenes (50,30) uses the word for 'exchange' rate (≤ katallagØ ∑n t«i érgur€vi) when arguing a case about payment for moneys spent. One might compare our scene with the parodos of Aischylos' Agamemnon where epic, tragic and political language are combined.[21] Of interest are the words ént€diko! and meto€koi which occur at lines 41 and 57 respectively. The former, meaning 'plaintiff', was "part of the political and legal vocabulary of the Athenian courts";[22] the latter, meaning 'co-residents' or 'denizens', pertains to citizenship rights for foreigners in the polis.[23] For both of these plays, Birds and Agamemnon, the presence of such words joins the otherwise detached world of drama and the divine with the particulars of the real affairs of the human world.

In a similar conjunction we learn from Poseidon's remarks (1570ff.) that the world of the gods — not just Olympos since the Triballian must also be included — is suddenly democratic.[24] Where is the tyranny of Zeus? The best explanation for this is that Aristophanes is juxtaposing for parody the political situation of Olympos and the same political situation in Athens. The problems each has with radical democracy are the same: the potential for having undesirable incompetents elected to office.

Another element that joins the divine polis to the Athenian demos is the gods', and especially Herakles', subjugation to the same laws of inheritance as were applicable in Athens. Because of these topical references, an interpretation of this scene should show differences and similarities not merely between the scene and a mythological context, but between it and Athens.[25]

When Poseidon, accompanied by the Triballian and Herakles, comes on stage he exclaims arrogantly that he is able to see tÚ m¢n pÒli!ma t∞! Nefelokokkug€a! (1565).[27] There is probably nothing obscure about his costume since he must have been easy to recognize for the humorous invocation of himself at 1614[28] to have effect: he probably carries his familiar trident.[29]

In the broader tradition of myth, literature and the plastic arts, Poseidon is an older conservative god.[30] The year before Birds was produced, Euripides had presented Poseidon in the god's speech at the beginning of Trojan Women as a god sympathetic to ruined Troy. [31] His moments of rage also exist: when he lost the patronage of Athens to Athena he flooded the Thriasian plain.[32] Something of this is evident in his frustration with the Triballian (kakÒdaimon 1569; o‡mvze 1571; barbar≈taton 1572), though by the end of the scene he yields[33] to both Herakles and the Triballian (!igÆ!omai 1684). The only aspect of Poseidon that does not seem to be alluded to here is his pursuit of Amymone[34] and marriage to Amphitrite.

At the beginning of this scene, Poseidon complains about the Triballian's unsophisticated manner of dress[35] and the tendency of 'Olympian democracy' to elect gods like the barbarian Triballian.[36] These remarks are appropriate for the patron god of the aristocratic ÑIpp∞! in Athens.[37] With respect to his last complaint: Aristophanes had already presented the attitude of the Knights toward radical democracy in his Knights of 424. In this play, complaint about the efficacy of a demagogic leader and, by implication, the governmental body that put him in power was one of Aristophanes' prime objectives. Aristophanes chose the Knights as his chorus for "their hostility as a class to Cleon."[38] Interestingly, Kleon was elected to the generalship just after the production of Knights. This hostility, directed specifically at Kleon but also at the type of leadership he represented, is also present in Acharnians: whether a real or theatrical confrontation,[39] Dikaiopolis mentions to›! p°nte talãntoi! oÂ! Kl°vn §jÆme!en ... ka‹ fil«, he says, toÁ! flppeã!/diã toËto toÎrgon: (Acharnians 6-8); later in the same play the chorus-leader exclaims his hatred for Kleon ˘n §g∆ tem« to›! flppeË!i kattÊmata (294ff.). While evidence from Aristophanes does not make us certain about the specific opinion of the aristocratic Knights per se, it does inform us of a general hostility on the part of the upper class toward upstart politicians duping the demos.[40] There have been several scholarly attempts to pinpoint exactly who or what part of the upper class was opposed (as Poseidon is here) to radical democracy in Athens.[41] After the reforms of Ephialtes,[42] power in Athens was in the hands of the voting demos. The wealthy elite, like the Knights, especially wished to regain the more prominent political positions their class standing afforded them before these reforms. For Aristophanes the crucial turning point seems to be 429, the year of Perikles' death. Poseidon's cry against democracy, I argue, is meant to call to mind such concerns about radical democracy or mob rule. It also further emphasizes the political differences between Nephelokokkygia and Olympos/Athens. We should see Poseidon's complaint about democracy in Olympos as we see other concerns, like those of the Knights, about the 'mob mentality' of democracy in Athens.[43] The Triballian and Herakles are the focus of Poseidon's frustration.

Poseidon first complains to the barbarian god about the manner in which he is dressed: t‹ drò!; §par€!ter' oÏtv! émp°xei;/ oÈ metabale›! yofimãtion œd' §pid°jia; (1567-8). The scholion for this line says that the Triballian has draped his himation over his right shoulder and around the left side of his waist À!per ofl Yrçike!, and whether or not the Thracians really wore their himatia this way, the Triballian's manner of dress is meant to look as barbaric as the rest of his appearance.

That wearing one's himation a certain way reflected one's social status (upper- or lower-class) has been noted by scholars.[44] To wear the himation close to the right side indicated upper-class status while wearing it close to the left was thought unsophisticated. The vases from the period corroborate this.[45] The Triballian then looks not only barbaric (as the scholion suggests) but also lower class.

When the Triballian does try to fix his garment, he does so incorrectly. He allows his himation to hang down too far. Poseidon is further annoyed and cries, t€, Œ kakÒdaimon; Lai!pod€a! e‰ tØn fÊ!in; We know from the scholion on this line that Laispodias, probably elected to the strathg€a in 414 just before the performance of Birds,[46] had some kind of leg deformity and so wore his himation longer than normal to conceal it.[47] Slandering Laispodias in relation to democratic practices suggests, I think, that he, like many other political figures,[48] was a younger-, perhaps first-generation politician/general arguably with his own interests in mind and not those of the demos:[49] in 414 he sailed as general to aid the Argives against Sparta;[50] in 411 he was to sail on the Paralos to Sparta as presbeus (with two others) from the Four Hundred but was intercepted at Samos and handed over to the Argives who were also there.[51] This type of duplicitous policy-making seems also to resemble that of Alkibiades, who is described by Plutarch, Alk. 23, as a chameleon/xamail°vn and (probably) as an octopus/poulÊpou![52] by Eupolis in his Demoi, fr. 93 (Edmonds).[53] The reference to Laispodias might have further recalled Alkibiades and his cronies and avatars, since Plut. Alk. 16,1 has Alkibiades walking "through the market-place trailing his long purple robes."[54] Above all, Aristophanes criticizes Laispodias for being rather like a barbarian and furthermore that (most of) the demos was satisfied with electing such people to office. Associating the barbarian Triballos with Laispodias and vulgar Athenians suggests ridicule of Laispodias-like office-seekers. This, again, encourages us to understand the scene in terms of Athenian life and politics.

If Acharnians 595ff. is any indication, some constituents of Athens thought generals and other politicians were such 'office-seekers'; to them this scene involving Lamachos[55] must have been particularly amusing (597-8):

Dik.: ...!Á d', §j ˜touper ı pÒlemo!, mi!yarx€dh! [at 595 Lam. is !poudarx€dh![56]].

Lam.: §xeirotÒnh!an gãr me -

Dik.: kÒkkug°! ge tre›!!

But not only are individuals ridiculed in Acharnians and our scene in Birds for their penchant for being office-seekers. They are also ridiculed by the claim that they are foreigners. Later in Acharnians Euathlos, a synegoros sometime before 425, is ridiculed as t∞i Skuy«n §rhm€ai (704) which derides him for being of foreign descent, in this case Thracian. Both of these passages recall Birds, once in the verb §xeirotÒnh!an[57] and again with t∞i Skuy«n •rhm€ai.[58] Though certainly not intentional echoes, these references show that Aristophanes ridicules generals, lawyers, and other notorious public figures by accusing them of foreign birth. Euathlos is also ridiculed elsewhere (Aristophanes' Olkades, fr. 424 PCG) and derided no less severely than Sakas (Akestor) or Exekestides in Birds. Laispodias, a true citizen, is mocked in a similar fashion, by a similar association with foreigners. Aristophanes uses the ridicule of foreign descent for young upstarts, no doubt sophistically trained. Acharnians 517-8 uses parakekomm°na of sycophants denouncing Megarian goods. Wasps 1042 mentions citizens complaining about sycophants to the polemarkhos who regularly handled cases involving non-Athenians.[59] There is also Birds 11, 762-5 and 1527 where Exekestides is marked as a foreigner. But was he really? Nothing from antiquity tells us he was.[60] A fragment from Phrynichos' Monotropos (fr. 21 PCG), produced in the same year as Birds, lists Exekestides with Lykeas (unknown), Teleas, and Peisandros. Teleas was probably a decree-maker as we can gather from Birds 168 and Peisandros, Birds 1556-8, was a prominent politician. Was Exekestides also a public figure like these others, as seems probable? Frogs 420-22 doubts the parentage of Archedemos, a prosecutor of some kind,[61] and later at 679-83 Kleophon, a dhmagvgÒ! in 405 who is treated much like Kleon in Knights, is associated with Thrace, and again at 730 "first-generation politicians," Í!tãtoi! éfigm°noi!in, are described as purr€ai!, or red-headed Thracian slaves. From all this we can see that public figures, whether sycophants or generals, could be derided by accusing them of being foreigners. This does not necessarily mean they were foreigners; the main point is the ridicule Aristophanes levels at them in the comparison. This is the case for the association of the Triballian god with Laispodias.

We now return to Poseidon, whose remark at 1570-1 emphasizes what we have been discussing about the Triballian. He cries out, " Oh, Democracy, where are you going to lead us to one of these days, if the gods can actually vote this fellow into office?"[62] This joke applies, again, less to the Triballian than to Laispodias himself and is an obvious metatheatrical attack by Poseidon/Aristophanes on Athens' system of government, now seemingly in place among the Olympians, which allows such (bad) leaders as Laispodias to hold power. What is funny about Poseidon's complaint is that precisely because democracy is in place among the Olympians, Peisetairos is able to defeat Poseidon by deceptively winning the vote of Herakles and the Triballian, who themselves are very easily manipulated. It is from this very kind of manipulation, for example, that Demos in Knights is purged.[63]

Poseidon's frustration and defeat at the hands of the new democracy among the gods also resembles his defeat by Athena in the contest for Athens, as depicted on the Parthenon's west pediment. Augustine in his City of God relates the story.[64] When Kekrops was king of Athens there appeared on the Akropolis an olive tree and salt-water spring. Not knowing what to do, Kekrops inquired at Delphi and learned that Athena and Poseidon were competing for the patronage of Athens and that the Athenians had to chose between them. A vote ensued, and, as was then customary, both men and women participated. The men voted for Poseidon and the women for Athena. There being more women than men in Athens at the time, Athena won. In anger Poseidon flooded Attika. To appease Poseidon Athenian women were no longer allowed to vote or be called 'Athenian' and their children could no longer take their mother's name. Even though the source for the story is late, it seems probable from the depiction of the contest on the west pediment of the Parthenon that Athenians knew it at least in the second half of the fifth century: Kekrops and one of his three daughters (either Aglauros, Herse or Pandrosos) appear in the left corner of the pediment.[65]

As in Augustine's story, there is in this scene a critique of the dangers of democracy, a danger that Peisetairos takes advantage of, but a danger that this play shows can be eradicated if a city has proper rulers by whom the demos is willing to be guided (as Herakles and the Triballian are not). Peisetairos' comic polis is free of this encumbrance, which was his first complaint about the birds. At 165 Peisetairos exclaims to Tereus about the nature of birds, mØ perip°te!ye pantax∞i kexhnÒte!. This kind of foolish helplessness is exactly what Peisetairos sees at fault in Herakles (1671) when the latter learns that he was never in fact meant to inherit Zeus' fortune: Peisetairos says to him t€ d∞t' ênv k°xhna! a‡keian bl°pvn;[66] The birds, on the contrary, convinced by Peisetairos, (re)gain their confidence and proceed with Peisetairos' plan to recover their rightful rule of the universe. Peisetairos does nearly the same with Herakles at 1672, µn mey' ≤m«n ∑i!, kata!tÆ!a! !' §g∆/tÊrannon Ùrn€yvn par°jv !oi gãla, offering a promise he will not keep, meant only to persuade Herakles, as it persuaded the birds, into following his grand plan.

All of this — the complaint about the Triballian's himation (that he has adjusted it so that it now looks like Laispodias') and the complaint about democracy — reveal how Aristophanes intended his audience to view these characters on stage. Taken as a whole, they reveal how Poseidon resembles a certain class of people in Athens. Poseidon was the patron god of the aristocratic ÑIpp∞!, as we have said, and his comment about democracy shows him to be seen as someone who felt critical of Athens' radical democracy. In the Prometheus chapter I discussed which group of people in Athens Peisetairos seems to resemble most. The conclusion was that he represented two groups simultaneously: the older landed aristocracy that very often was anti-democratic and sought to stay away from the affairs of the polis (apragmones),[67] and the younger landed aristocracy that used its rhetorical training from sophists to manipulate the demos for its own political ends. Poseidon's cry against democracy would seem to associate him with the older class of Athenians who had misgivings about the demos' ability to rule effectively. These Athenians, furthermore, were apragmones not of the Periklean sort — those who did nothing to help maintain the empire as Perikles wanted (cf., e.g., Thuk. 2,68,2-3) — but were those who through fear of prosecution at the hands of sycophants and the likes of Kleon avoided participation in the democracy of which they did not approve.[68] In this respect, Poseidon sounds very much like the Old Oligarch of the pseudo-Xenophonic Athenian Constitution.[69]

The impression of Poseidon's frustration continues throughout the scene as he is snubbed by a stomach-ruled Herakles and a bullied Triballian who are persuaded by Peisetairos to surrender not only Zeus' scepter but also Basileia. Poseidon is unsure at first about Peisetairos' request for the scepter. Peisetairos, however, lists the benefits gods could enjoy with the birds as !Êmmaxoi (1610). This is not only openly deceptive (Peisetairos, of course, has ulterior motives) but cunning and careful since it naturally perpetuates the formal setting of the negotiations over which Peisetairos has complete control. The gods themselves have nothing with which to wager; they can only refuse Peisetairos' requests and starve as a result.

Aristophanes presents this scene in the direct light of the Athenian audience's understanding of negotiations, and this is what adds humor to the scene: seeing the Olympians made to comply to Attica nomoi.[70] The audience would have recalled various arguments from Athens and other cities about the benefits of becoming !Êmmaxoi.[71] From about 420 they could have remembered, for example, the various alliances with Argos, prompted by the Corinthians (Thuk. 5,28ff. and 47 where Thuk. recites the treaty between Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis). The general tenor of this part of the scene reveals Peisetairos as the skilled politician convincing a newly democratized state of the value of an alliance with a more influential state.[72] He first convinces the embassy that the Olympians will in fact be more powerful with the birds as allies, since the birds can punish perjurers by having a crow (kÒraj) knock out their eyes (§kkÒcei, 1613). This is an echo[73] of 577ff. where the chorus,[74] persuaded by Peisetairos of their primordial divinity, wonders whether humans will doubt the birds are gods. To this Peisetairos responds that, in order to convince humans, birds need only gulp down the seed from their fields or have crows (kÒrake!) peck out (§kkocãntvn, 583) the eyes of their ox and sheep. This reuse of a theme is cunning and resourceful on Peisetairos' part,[75] but it especially shows that the real power of the universe, so to speak, lies with the birds; otherwise, the gods could themselves attend to perjurers.

That the Olympian gods of Birds were not omniscient and omnipotent and so susceptible to duping is shown in several places in the play. In the two passages I have just mentioned, where the birds would destroy crops or peck out animals' eyes, Demeter and Apollo are ridiculed for their inevitable inability to restore these very crops and animals. Demeter would make excuses (profã!ei!...par°xou!an, 581) and Apollo, despite the fact he draws a salary (mi!yofore›, 584), could do nothing (fiatrÒ! g' Ãn fiã!yv, 584).[76] At 521 Peisetairos mentions Lampon, an oracle-monger, who swears not by tÚn Z∞na but by tÚn x∞na whenever he wants to deceive (§japatçi ti) the god to whom he has sworn.[77] While it is difficult to tell whether any Athenians actually thought the gods were incapable of knowing they had forsworn, the literary evidence makes it clear that "no one can hope to escape punishment if he offends against divine law."[78] It is probable, however, that the philosophers and sophists of the fifth century, with their often intricate arguments about the divine and people's relationship to it, influenced some portion of the Athenian population.[79] A good example of this is Strepsiades of Clouds, who, having been convinced by Sokrates that the gods no longer exist, does not fear a creditor's challenge to swear he did not borrow money (Clouds 1232-6).[80]

What we have discussed suggests that it is comical for the gods to be unable to control perjurers, and further that (bad) sophistic influence, here expressed by a certain irreverence for the divine, is rather widespread in the Athens of the play — the Athens Peisetairos first escapes from and then gains control over, and the Athens the Olympians apparently cannot control.

Even though Poseidon, Herakles, and (probably) the Triballian[81] are convinced by Peisetairos' first offer of alliance, Peisetairos freely provides another. This, like the former, makes assumptions about the gods that are eyebrow-raising and humorous. At 1618-21 Peisetairos continues to lure the gods into his plan: "If someone promises a sacrifice to one of the gods and then says something clever[82] like, 'The gods are patient,' and doesn't render what is due (épodid«i) because of greed, we'll collect on (énaprãjomen) these things too."

The two verbs here, the one for "render what is due", épodidÒnai, and the other for "collect on", énaprãttein, deserve further attention. While épodidÒnai is common enough,[83] it does have a certain technical meaning[84] most often applicable to the repayment of debt.[85] It also appears to have special meaning with respect to the gods. It was used to speak of reimbursing temples from which the boulÆ and d∞mo! had taken money to cover war costs.[86] The verb énaprãttein is much rarer. It is not poetic and its prominent meaning is specific to debt and money;[87] it occurs nowhere else in Aristophanes but appears much later, in the third century, in inscriptions.[88] The audience, therefore, heard in these two words something appropriate to financial decrees and legal concerns and not to the language of sacrifice. If the Olympians cannot see all and so stop something so fundamental as perjury, what relationship do they have with the humans that supposedly worship them? This is the kind of question Aristophanes is raising in this scene as Peisetairos, in his offers of alliance, pinpoints the problems the Olympians are having with humans. The birds, however, stand in direct contrast to the Olympians and offer a more salutary and profitable relationship between mortals and the divine.

Furthermore, this offer, like the first, portrays the gods as incapable of administering punishment to those who try to deceive them; like the first it also identifies a sophistic 'problem' in Athens: the belief that the gods are not interested in the affairs of humans, and that consequently humans need not trouble themselves with the gods, nor in fact concern themselves with their existence. Aristophanes dealt with this problem in his production of Clouds (423). Sokrates there serves as the conglomerate representative of sophistic theories at the time, not the least of which is the denial of the Olympian gods' existence. In Euripides' Hecuba[89] 798ff. Hecuba exclaims that nomos is the master of the gods because by nomos we reckon them divine. Adeimantos in Plato's Republic (365dff.), expresses similar sentiments when he says, efi m¢n mØ efi!‹n µ mhd¢n aÈto›! t«n ényrvp€nvn m°lei, t€ ka‹ ≤m›n melht°on toË lanyãnein; Aristodemos,[90] in Xenophon's Memorabilia (1,4,10) says to Sokrates, oÎtoi...Íperor« tÚ daimÒnion, éll' §ke›no megaloprep°!teron ≤goËmai <µ> …! t∞! §m∞! yerape€a! pro!de›!yai. And a fragment from Thrasymachos is not far off, though more cynical: ofl yeo‹ oÈx ır«!i tå ényr≈pina: oÈ går ín tÚ m°gi!ton t«n §n ényr≈poi! égay«n pare›don tØn dikaio!Ênhn: dr«men går toÁ! ényr≈pou! taÊth! mØ xrvm°nou!.[91]

This contemporary debate about the gods, particularly applicable to Athens' stereotypical sophists, brings to light the degree of atheistic activity in the 'comic Athens' of the play, and so too in the Athens of reality. Euripides offers the best reflection of intellectual currents in Athens.[92] At some point in his play Bellerophon, now lost (ca. 426?), a character exclaims, fh!€n ti! e‰nai d∞t' §n oÈran«i yeoÊ!;/ oÈk efi!€n, oÈk e‡!'....[93] And again from the same play, efi yeo€ ti dr«!in afi!xrÒn, oÈk efi!i‹n yeo€.[94] In Melanippe the Wise (411) someone, possibly in the prologue, says, ZeÁ! ˘!ti! ı ZeÊ!, oÈ går o‰da plØn lÒgvi.[95] While such expressions are alien to Aischylos[96] and Sophokles, they are, no doubt, representative of what Euripides felt was part of the Athenian intellectual fabric of the late fifth century.

But more importantly, the Olympian gods, as represented in Birds, are also questioned in regard to their moral behavior. Walter Burkert offers a fascinating discussion of the gods and their position between amorality and law.[97] He maintains that the older mythological representation of the gods, in which their 'amoral' acts are often portrayed, for example in Homer and Hesiod, became increasingly opposed to Greek religion as it developed along with Greek society. The Olympians "would correspond to an unstable aristocratic rule at the end of the dark age,"[98] while this is hardly the reality of Athens in the late fifth century. Tragedy especially had to deal with presenting 'old' myth in terms of current issues — though that is not to say that all tragedy is politically motivated.

Comedy too, when the gods of myth are employed, grapples with this polarity. At 516ff. Zeus is described as ruling with a bird §p‹ t∞! kefal∞!, an arrogant act (since birds are the true rulers) which Peisetairos describes as most outrageous (deinÒtaton). The gods' are ridiculed for their usual manner of flying about with hard-ons (§!tukÒ!i, 557)[99] in order to have sexual intercourse with Alkmenes, Alopes or Semeles. They will no longer be permitted to do so by the birds with their strategically located city if, in turn, Zeus does not surrender his rule. At 728 the Olympians sit aloft in the clouds with their noses in the air. At 829 Peisetairos jokes about Athens and Athena: 'how can a city be well-disciplined when it has a female god wearing armor and a man using a needle to sew.'

With these vignettes of the gods Aristophanes is not attacking state religion. Rather, through a presentation of the simple naturalness of 'bird' religion he is reconciling traditional images of deity with the religious needs of Athens at the time of the play. To be sure, he asserts the value of the function of religion and confirms what is best about the Greek religious system. If there is no morality among divinities there is no piety among humans. If there is no piety, there is no ritual — hence the importance of sacrifice to the play, as discussed above. If, in turn, there is no ritual there is no social cohesion and no society. Therefore, Aristophanes maintains that divinity should be morally incorruptible.[100]

In this respect, the birds are, in fact, better gods than the Olympians of the play. Whereas Demeter and Apollo will fail to help mortals when troubles befall them (albeit those troubles are caused by the birds; 582ff.), the birds, on the other hand, will eat the locusts that eat vine-blossoms (588-9) and the ants and gall-wasps that eat fig-trees (590-1). They will not need expensive temples and sacrifices as the Olympians do (618-26): the birds need only bushes and saplings (and perhaps an olive tree for prouder birds!). They will not sit snobbishly among the clouds, but will provide everyone, their children and their children's children, with wealth and health, means for living, peace, youth, laughter, dances, festivities and birds' milk (730ff.). There are further benefits (not made in comparison to the Olympians) that show the strength of the birds' divinity. At 723-36 the birds will be prophets, Muses, favorable breezes and seasons if mortals deem (nom€zein) them divine. And at 1318 Sophia, Pothos, the ambrosial Graces and the pleasant face of gentle Hesychia already dwell in Nephelokokkygia (and no longer in Olympos?). With the divine birds as watch-dogs and better moral examples than the Olympians, Peisetairos offers the comic Athens of the play a means by which to control tÚ dia!of€ze!yai of the sophists.[101]

This new religion in Nephelokokkygia is concordant with Peisetairos' whole idea of creating a new city: everything, including the religion, is better than the politics and religion characteristic of Athens. Throughout the play there are references to the geographic and ethnographic world of the birds and Peisetairos' utopia. These references suggest that Nephelokokkygia be associated with Anatolia and Thrace. This association, I argue, is tied up in the complex of ideas oriented around the antithesis nomos-physis as it relates to understanding different cultures in relation to the nomoi of Athens. Ultimately, however, Birds becomes an ideal polis and an ideal Olympos by eliminating what was ineffective and corrupt about the 'real' world, but keeping everything else. And what is wrong with Athens, according to the play, is gods whose actions and conduct are not concurrent with the morals and standards of the polis and the person. By associating the birds throughout the play with ecstatic cult, Aristophanes reunites divinity with people and their city: ecstatic cult in Athens concentrated on the individual, unlike polis religion which revolved around the Olympians and was group oriented.

That the birds and their world are different from Olympos is first suggested at 199 where Tereus tells Peisetairos aÈtoÁ! babãrou! ˆnta! prÚ toË/§d€daja tØn [ÑEllhnikØn] fvnÆn, where the birds are presented as foreigners. At 745-6 the koryphaios sings, Pan‹ nÒmou! fleroÁ! énafa€nv !emnã te Mhtr‹ xoreÊmat' Ùre€ai,[102] which conjures images of foreign cult. Pindar (Pythian 3,78-9, ca. 474)[103] boasts (§peÊja!yai)[104] of his journey to Syracuse to Matr€ (!emnån yeÒn) and Pan€ to whom the koËrai par' §mÚn prÒyuron sing and dance (m°lpontai) all night (§nnÊxiai). Perhaps Aristophanes had this passage in mind.[105] But in Pindar we are meant to imagine Pan and Meter in Thebes (par' §mÚn prÒyuron) perhaps on Kithairon where the koËrai can celebrate their cult in ecstatic fashion, like the Bacchants of Dionysos.[106] Furthermore, Pan is represented on a black-figure neck amphora with a maenad,[107] a red-figure bell crater erect and chasing a boy,[108] and several Pans are represented at the anodos of a goddess.[109] The first two of these and perhaps the last (the Pans have large phalluses though not erect) indicate the sexual element associated with the god. While Pan can be the protector of wild animals on mountain tops, it also seems likely that the sexual nature of both Pan and the birds is alluded to here; the birds themselves resemble erect satyrs who themselves resemble Pan.[110] Their association with Pan, then, suggests that the birds are not only like Bacchic revelers but also creatures, like Pan, who border culture and wilderness.

In this connection the ecstatic nature of the worship of Meter points toward Anatolia, particularly Phrygia.[111] At 873-4 the priest who is supposed to offer the founding sacrifice for the new city of Nephelokokkygia invokes the Phrygian Sabazios along side of Meter, who is here addressed as the Mother of gods. Her worship in Athens had a double identity. On the one hand she was at the very center of the city: the temple of Meter was part of the Bouleterion of the Agora. On the other hand, she was closely connected with the Korybantes who "both send and cure madness,"[112] and their ecstatic rites. The birds also have a dual reality in the play. The nature of their city causes Athenians to go 'bird mad', ÙrniyomanoË!i (1284), a word that plays on ecstatic madness, but this draws them into the new polis and its reforms. The birds' 'otherness' in relation to foreign cult is also noticeable in the antistrophe of the first parabasis (774) where swans sing near the river Hebros in Thrace: their boã causes animals to cower (pt∞je) and a yãmbo! seizes Olympos.[113] Finally, the wondrous places the birds have been and seen, couched carefully is strophic songs amidst the Prometheus- and embassy-scene, are meant to sound exotic and foreign, though in fact they are fantastic descriptions of Athens itself.

The new religion among the birds resembles imported but established cults in Athens, and particularly cults into which one was not born, but cults of which one chose to be a part. Just as "the cult of Meter is able to take part in both aspects of Greek cult practice, as the goddess was worshipped both as a civic cult of the polis and a deity of private ecstasies,"[114] so the 'cult of the birds' bridges the gap between the needs of community and the needs of the person, reflecting the nascence of personal religion, already beginning in Athens.[115]

As his last effort to win Herakles' vote, Poseidon tries to convince him that if Zeus dies throneless, he will inherit nothing. It is here, in his arguments against Poseidon, that Peisetairos orchestrates his final feat of verbal nuance, and to an Athenian audience keenly fed on rhetoric and law, Peisetairos comes across as impressive as he seeks to secure possession of Basileia. This needs further clarification.

Not all scholars agree that Aristophanes' audience would have been, or was meant to have been, sympathetic to Peisetairos.[116] But if Peisetairos is not the comic embodiment of (in this case) the political fantasies of at least some section of Aristophanes' audience,[117] he is unlike any other Aristophanic hero. Even with Strepsiades and Philokleon, two perhaps unlikely heroes, the audience is sympathetic. Strepsiades, intending to rid himself of debt (as Peisetairos and Euelpides want to do), is manipulated by sophistic logic, and Philokleon is "misled by clever orators and unscrupulous politicians,"[118] who themselves manipulate the Athenian judicial system. Aristophanes' extant plays generally present topical dangers in Athens, but these dangers are not created by the hero: the hero is subjected to them and then made to overcome them. If, then, the 'topical danger' in Acharnians is war, in Knights Kleon, in Clouds sophistic rhetoric, and Wasps a manipulated judicial system, what is it in Birds?

MacDowell has recently described Birds as a play about "the escape of an ordinary man from the selfish busybodies who get in his way in everyday life" (emphasis added).[119] I think he is right, but one may go even further and situate this idea of escape within a discussion of utopias, an idea often associated with Birds.[120] A utopia, by definition, is no place at all, and this is literally true of Nephelokokkygia. In this sense it is an outopia. There are, however, other kinds of utopias:[121] a utopia of escape, but also a utopia of reconstruction.[122] Nephelokokkygia offers not only escape from the problems of Athens (exemplified by those who visit the new city and try to gain admission) but also a reconstruction of Athens that creates new and better civic and religious institutions vis à vis the comic Athens of the play — certainly not far from the real Athens. The possibilities of the actions of Peisetairos are not meant to be real solutions to Athens' concerns with itself or the war. Rather, what happens in Birds is a conglomerate of ideas moving through Athens among different groups of its society. Ultimately, Birds and the extant plays of Aristophanes are meant to mirror and refract Athenian and Greek life, offering the audience a distorted but recognizable image of itself.[123]

We have already discussed the religious innovations of the new bird city. The civic ones are most obvious in this last section of the play where the Aristophanic hero enjoys the success of his comic utopia. Peisetairos' ultimate control over the negotiations is unparalleled in Athens and other democratic cities in Greece, which routinely called assemblies to vote on ambassadors' reports.[124] This control is the most important feature of Aristophanes' utopia, through which he suggests that unfettered power in the right hands is best for the demos: this Aristophanes also does in Acharnians, though Dikaiopolis' demos is only his family.

To return to our scene: the settlement of alliance, in which the birds are to punish perjurers and those who put off performing their sacrifices, surely made the audience laugh since it was far from Peisetairos' original plan and obviously put forth to appease the embassy. Its members drool with hunger over the dissident birds Peisetairos cooks. This dulls them to the poignancy of his real request for Basileia, the secret to Zeus' power, who, as the audience knows from Prometheus, is essential to Peisetairos' success. Poseidon's quick-tempered refusal at 1635 reveals the severity of the matter. It is at this point that Poseidon tries to lure Herakles back to a 'no vote', away from the temptation of food, by pointing out that Peisetairos has in fact been fooling him all along (supposedly with the food) and by convincing him with a very obvious lie, that if Zeus dies deprived of his rule, Herakles will inherit nothing: in fact, Herakles could inherit nothing from Zeus under Athenian law because he is an illegitimate child.[125]

Peisetairos sees through Poseidon's attempt and labels it as clever sophism: peri!of€zetai (1646, a ëpaj) and diabãlleta€ !' (1648) he says to Herakles. The former verb is a direct echo of dia!of€zhtai at 1619 and similarly carries with it sophistic connotations, especially that of winning the weaker argument. But Poseidon does not convince Herakles, and the argument itself must have seemed to the audience openly ridiculous and so futile: the desperate nature of Poseidon's argument further reveals the frustration he now aims at Herakles. Poseidon hardly begins trying to convince Herakles when Peisetairos interrupts with paratragic o‡moi tãla! (1646).[126]

Peisetairos has no trouble providing evidence contrary to Poseidon's argument. What may, however, be of interest is the idea of Herakles as nÒyo!.[127] The Athenian audience would have known Herakles in this capacity not so much from any emphasis in myth[128] but from his festival in the (seemingly otherwise quiet) month of Metageitnion.[129] The festival was held in the gymnasium at Kynosarges just south of Athens.[130] What was peculiar about the festival was "a curious rule that the club was specially open to residents of non-citizen birth, who would not elsewhere have been accepted."[131] It is probably within this context that the audience thought of Herakles as bastard.

What Peisetairos points out is that Athena, not Herakles, is epikleros to Zeus' fortune (1651ff.). This might have been humorous to the audience in light of inheritance laws. It was not so unusual for an Athenian who did not have a legitimate son to leave his estate to his daughter,[132] who is then the epikleros of the estate. But a man would do this with the expectation that his daughter would one day have a legitimate son who in turn could be posthumously adopted.[133] The daughter's future husband might even be an ankhisteus: Peisetairos implies at 1658-9 that Poseidon, as gnÆ!io! would get Zeus' estate, and the only way he could do this would be by marrying Athena — though this implication, as Dunbar notes, "was perhaps too scandalous even for comedy…."[134] At first glance naming Athena as Zeus' epikleros over the 'bastard' Herakles seems flattering to Athens and its citizens.[135] Rogers, in his edition of Birds, first suggested that §p€klhro! might have been "recognized as an appellation of Athene…",[136] and Dunbar follows Rogers in this respect adding that the appellation refers "to her [Athena's] having won the city in contest with Poseidon, an event portrayed on the Parthenon's west pediment."[137] This is very likely, but since Zeus is being subject to Athens' laws, the Athenian audience must also have laughed at the notion of Zeus leaving his inheritance to a daughter who, being an eternal virgin, would never produce a male offspring to whom the oikos could be left.[138] Furthermore, the audience knew full well that Zeus had legitimate sons.[139]

Finally, in order fully to win Herakles over, Peisetairos offers to make him tÊranno! (presumably over Zeus[140]) and provide him with the legendary[141] but curiously evasive birds' milk. The deceptive nature of this offer is certainly intentional.

Peisetairos is not self-serving or villainous to the cause of the birds: they are still in full view at 1672 where Peisetairos says mey' ≤m«n to Herakles. He is, as I argued in the Prometheus chapter, the ideal leader and statesman who, having control of the demos, guides it without opposition. Much the same way those of oligarchic leanings would have wanted to control and guide the Athenian demos, and directly opposite to the manner in which Poseidon was able to handle the negotiations in our scene. Yet Peisetairos is a better leader, for example, than someone like Alkibiades because, after the initial conflict with the birds, he has their constant trust. Athens' relationship with Alkibiades was never stable. Kleon and Hyperbolos,[142] always portrayed as selfishly misleading and harming the demos, had surreptitiously gained their trust, as Demos laments in Knights. Peisetairos, however, is still better than these, at least through the eyes of the play, because it is he as well as the birds, their demos and their city, who triumph in the end.

[1] Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1972), p. 66 where he also presents the structure of Aristophanes' plays. The scenes following the parabasis of Aristophanes' plays are "illustrative episodes" in which the hero reaps the benefits of the new world he has produced. Cf. also DTC2, pp. 207-10.

[2] Thuk. 6,27: ka‹ tÚ prçgma meizÒnv! §lãmbanon: toË te går ¶kplou ofivnÚ! §dÒkei e‰nai, ka‹ §p‹ junvmo!€a! ëma nevt°rvn pragmãtvn ka‹ dÆmou katalÊ!ev! gegen∞!yai.

[3] Ostwald Sovereignty, pp. 324-27 and Appendix C. While it may be legitimate to say that the populace was right to think the mutilation and profanation was the first stage in some sort of coup since the majority of participants were young aristocrats with oligarchic leanings, there is good reason to believe that there was no such intention (Ostwald 325). It is more likely that the acts were committed by a group of young aristocrats not intending to overthrow Athens (the faction was not organized as such; cf. nn. 233 and 270) nor prevent the expedition (there was no such prior opposition; cf. Thuk. 6,24,2-4; 26,1-2 and 31-32) but expressing their frustration at the most recent 'project' of radical democracy of which they (excluding Alkibiades who, although implicated, is a special hybrid of aristocrat and demagogue) were not participants (Ostwald pp. 326-7). It is interesting to note that Hubbard, The Mask of Comedy [Ithaca 1991] pp. 159ff.) has argued that Birds is directed against the hermokopidai. Perhaps it is, but in view of my interpretation, Birds is not antithetical to the aristocrats' frustration but sympathetic to it.

[4] MacDowell, Wasps (Oxford 1971) p. 180 ad 345 for "the tendency in Athens during the Peloponnesian war to accuse a political opponent of 'conspiracy' or 'tyranny' with little or no justification." Cf. also Lys. 616-35 and Henderson Lysistrata ad loc.

[5] Arist. Ath. Pol. 19,1; Vesp. 500 and the Lys. passage in the note above.

[6] J. F. McGlew, Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece (Ithaca and London 1993) p. 190.

[7] Cf. esp. Thuk. 2,29 and 96-7 and Rusten Thucydides ad loc. for an account of the relations between Athens and Thrace in the fifth century.

[8] See Appendix III for the likelihood and purposefulness of Peisetairos' deception.

[9] Peisetairos only knows from Prometheus that a Triballian god and pr°!bei!...parå toË DiÚ! will arrive, cf. 1532-3.

[10] See Prometheus chapter p. 62.

[11] Cf. MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens (Oxford 1995), p. 224 who supports my contention that Aristophanes meant the audience to be sympathetic to Peisetairos and not consider him a cruel tyrant: "there is no reason why this penalty should not have been imposed democratically." Cf. also Henderson, "Peisetairos and the Athenian Elite," in Gregory Dobrov (ed.), Aristophanes' Birds and Nephelokokkugia. Charting the Comic Polis (Syracuse 1990) p. 15: "a rebellion against the demos is not something most Athenians in 414 would have been any more prepared to be lenient about than they had in 415."

[12] Envoys, it seems, were regularly invited to the prytaneion for brunch. Cf., e.g., ML 37, 14-15; Tod 63, 24-5 and 118, 38-9; Ach. 124-5; and Dunbar, p. 722-3 ad 1600-2.

[13] The starving Herakles is a comic topos that seems to have begun with Epicharmos, but see also scholion on Pax 740. Cf. also, e.g., Vesp. 60, Lys. 928, Eur. Alk. 749-50, Nub. 1050 Pax 741; Ranae 62f., 549ff.; Eupolis' TÚ xru!oËn g°no! 289 (Edmonds); Phrynichos' Montropos 23 (PCG) where a person is jokingly called ÙligÒ!ito! ÑHrakl∞!; Platon's ZeË! kakoÊmeno! 46; Aristophanes' Aiolosikon 11 (PCG); Archippos' ÑHrakl∞! Gam«n mentions lots of food. Cf. esp. Karl Galinsky's chapter on the comic Herakles in his The Herakles Theme (Oxford 1972). Stone Costume, pp. 316-18 mentions Herakles' costuming in the terra-cotta statuettes and the Nike Vase (fig. 3 in Stone) where he wears a "snub-nosed mask and a head-in-mouth- lionskin…; he carries a bow in his left hand and a club in his right" (p. 317).

[14] Nephelokokkygia (Roma 1987), pp. 70-1.

[15] Mythos u. Komödie (Hildesheim 1976), pp. 79-90.

[16] See Appendix IV.

[17] Dunbar, p. 719 ad loc.

[18] ML 52,51 (Athens and Chalkis, 446-5); Tod 100,11 (401-0);

[19] ML 49,9 (445).

[20] ibid. 58,9 (434-3).

[21] See generally, the remarks of P. E. Easterling, "Notes on Tragedy and Epic," in Lyn Rodley (ed.), Papers given at a Colloquium on Greek Drama in honour of R. P. Winnington-Ingram (London) 1987, 52-62.

[22] Fraenkel Agamemnon, vol. 2, p. 27 ad 41, who also notes that "the word must have sounded strange to the audience in this context…"

[23] Tod, The Shape of Athenian Law (Oxford 1993) pp. 194-200.

[24] The embassy votes democratically on its decision to yield to Peisetairos: chf€zomai (1601, 1626 of Herakles); 1676 (Poseidon).

[25] Although, there is danger in going too far in this direction. Katz, "The Birds of Aristophanes and Politics," Athenaeum 43 (1976) 73-82, e.g., goes too far, I think, in identifying the three gods in this scene with Nikias (= Poseidon), Alkibiades (= the Triballian), and Lamachos (= Herakles). The text does not support this.

[26] Important publications on Poseidon may be found in Burkert GR, p. 402.

[27] Dunbar ad loc. notes that the rhythm is tragic (˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ |˘ ¯ ˘ ˘˘| ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯) as well as the words (tÚ pÒli!ma); cf. also n. 553, p. 377 where Dunbar describes Poseidon's entrance lines as "pompous."

[28] He exclaims, nØ tÚn Po!eid« taËtã ge toi kal«! l°gei!­­­­­­­­, to Peisetairos' proposal that the birds and gods be allies.

[29] Stone Costume, p. 329: "Poseidon is wearing a long chiton and a himation… The costume will be completed by bare feet, a crown, and the trident…"

[30] Burkert GR, 139: "In the Homeric poems there emerges from such origins a peculiar character of the god: he is great and powerful, yet of a certain gravity; never winged with youth but always decidedly a member of the older generation and if anything solicitous in an avuncular kind of way." (But cf. also Nilsson [Geschichte der Griechischen Religion2 (München 1955), vol. 1, p. 452] who has described him as "wild und naturhaft..., eine Eigenschaft, die auch seinen Söhnen, z.B. den Kyklopen, anhaftet, und daß er keine ethischen Beziehungen hat.")

[31] Poseidon did not appear often on the Athenian stage. We are absolutely certain only that he appeared in Birds and Euripides' Trojan Women (produced in 415). It is possible and perhaps probable that he appeared in various satyr plays by the title Amymone, one having been written by Aiskhylos (but produced much earlier than the date of Birds). He may have appeared in Hermippos' Birth of Athena, produced sometime around 423. He may also have appeared in the prologue of Euripides' Erechtheus, produced also in 423 (Plutarch, Life of Nikias, 9 ap. Austin, Nova Fragmenta Euripidea in Papyris Reperta [Berlin 1968] , p. 22), and in Platon's Greece or Islands, fr. 24 (Edmonds = S Iliad 1,135) where Poseidon speaks perhaps to Sparta.

[32] August. De civ. D. 18,9 who derives his story from Varro.

[33] As he was compelled to yield to Athena and to many other gods in his failed attempts to become the patron of, e.g., Argos (Hera), Corinth (Helios), Troizen (Athena), and Aigina (Zeus); Schachermeyr, Poseidon u. die Entstehung des griechischen Götterglaubens (Bern 1950) p. 23.

[34] Which sounds very much like the pursuit of the young women (like Iris, as we have seen) whom satyrs often chased. The pursuit (probably of many different women) is well attested in classical vases (this theme being prevalent among them); the identity of the women Poseidon chases is not always clear. For examples, cf. Boardman ARFVArch 353 (woman unidentifiable); Boardman ARFVClass 316 and 383 (Amymone, identifiable for the hydra she carries in search of water at the instructions of her father, Dananos); Trendall RFVItaly 378. Poseidon's pursuit of Demeter, a story particular to Arcadia, seems to be the prototype for the later pursuits of Poseidon.

[35] As will be further noted below, wearing one's himation the wrong way showed cultural ignorance and low-class breeding. Dunbar (p. 716) appropriately calls attention to Pl. Tht. 175e "on the unphilosophical man, expert at menial tasks but 'not knowing how to wear his cloak like a gentleman' (énabãlle!yai d¢ oÈk §pi!tam°nou §pid°jia §leuyer€v!)."

[36] H. Köckert's dissertation, Aristophanes und die Religion (Leipzig 1976), pp. 76f., suggests that in his presentation of the Triballian Aristophanes is criticizing the new foreign gods admitted to Athens' official cults— one thinks of orgiastic rites. But Parker in his recent work, Athenian Religion (Oxford 1996), prudently warns scholars against assuming a "sudden outburst of interest in barbarian gods" (p. 196) for the late fifth century, and stresses that a difference should be made between "established and non-established cults; native or foreign (p. 163)." Bendis, e.g., though Thracian, was established.

[37] See esp. Peter Siewert, "Poseidon Hippios am Kolonos und die athenischen Hippeis," in Glen W. Bowersock et al. (eds.), Arktouros. Hellenic Studies Presented to Bernard M.W. Knox (Berlin & New York 1979) 280-289. and more recently I. G. Spence, The Cavalry of Classical Greece (Oxford 1994), pp. 188f. Spence points out that "the assembly which dissolved the democracy in 411 was held not only at Kolonos but on ground sacred to Poseidon" (cf. Thuk. 8,67,2). Ancient evidence for Poseidon as patron god of the ÑIpp∞! is Eq. 551 (Aristophanes' famous hymn to Poseidon; cf. a similar hymn with different attributes at PMG 939 [Arion?]; for an early date for this fragment [thought by some to belong to the new music], and so a possible influence for Aristophanes, cf. Hellenica 40 (1989) 229-237); Pherekrates' Petale (424?) 134; Nub. 83; and IG I2 310, 60ff. Cf. also Sommerstein Knights, pp. 3-4: "The Knights by their birth, wealth and vigour represent, in the traditional value-system, the 'best' element in society…." Cf. also Eq. 838-40 where the Sausage-Seller is compared to Poseidon (though not mentioned by name): t«n !ummãxvn t' êrjei! ¶xvn tr€ainan,/∏i pollå xrÆmat' §rgã!ei !e€vn te ka‹ tarãtvn.

[38] Sommerstein Knights, p. 3.

[39] Henderson, Aristophanes frr. trans., in Birth of Comedy (Baltimore, forthcoming), at Babylonians thinks that a theatrical confrontation is "unlikely, since the Knights seem to have played no role in comedy before Knights: cf. Ach. 299-302 and Eq. 507ff."

[40] Thuk. 3,36,6; 4,21,3; 4,28,5 and 39,3; and esp. 5,16,1 for opinions about Kleon.

[41] Notably A. M. H. Jones' chapter "The Athenian Democracy and its Critics," in his Athenian Democracy (New York 1958); Harmut Wolff, "Die Opposition gegen die radikale Demokratie in Athen bis zum Jahre 411 v. Chr," ZPE 36 (1979) 279-302; and L. B. Carter passim in his Quiet Athenian (Oxford 1986), all of whom rightly stress that there was no organized opposition to democracy.

[42] Although the upper class regularly held important offices such as general, with the reforms of Ephialtes they were subject to euthynai at large from the demos that elected them and not from a select group of similarly upper class citizens as it had been. Cf. Ostwald Sovereignty, p. 78. It was this shift that later caused the wealthy elites to hold as circumspect these offices since the euthynai (sometimes brought on by the vicious sycophants Aristophanes warns of and ridicules, as in Birds) had the potential of confiscating their property and assets. Cf. Carter, Quiet Athenian, chapter 5 passim, p. 119 for summary arguments, and Ach. 676-691 where the chorus of old men complain about being unfairly harassed in the law courts by younger lawyers.

[43] But again only after the death of Perikles in 429. Cf. Thukydides' description of Perikles' rule at 2,65 and esp. 2,65,8-10.

[44] Johnson [Abrahams], Ancient Greek Dress (Chicago 1954), p. 54: "It was considered a mark of good breeding to throw it over the [left] shoulder and let it hang down in such a way as to cover the left arm completely." Our passage seems to emphasize this, and other evidence comes from vase paintings depicting aristocratic gentlemen (e.g. plate E, figs. 20 and 21, Johnson [Abrahams]). Cf. also Johnson [Evans], op. cit., p. 49ff. for similar sentiments. Stone Costume, p. 156 notes that the terracotta statuettes of comic figures "tend to show men with their himations more casually draped than the aristocrats…" Similarly, cf. Ussher Ecclesiazusae ad 275, p. 113 (Praxagora: ka‹ yafimãtia téndre›ã g' ëper §kl°cate/§panabãle!ye, kt•.) that "The order, 'throw up on (your shoulder)', side unspecified, suggests that no one style was currently de rigeur for their folk-men." But, pace Ussher, the monuments (except for the terracotta statuettes noted by Stone) do seem to suggest that §p€dejia was the accepted style. See the following note for further examples.

[45] Examples from Boardman (ARFVArch and ARFVClass) are noted by Dunbar, 716. Others, e.g., can be found in Green and Handley, Images of the Greek Theatre (Texas 1995), figs. 25 (tragic), 28 (comic), 29 (comic), and 30 (comic). Literary references can be found in A.G. Geddes, CQ 37 (1987) 312 (ap. Dunbar, 716).

[46] At Thuk. 6,105,2 the Athenians respond to the Argive's request for help against the Spartans by sending Pythodoros, Laispodias, and Demaratos as aid in the summer of 414. Cf. Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (Ithaca 1981), 269 and Katz, op. cit., 356 with n. 9.

[47] As evidence the scholion quotes from Eupolis' Demoi (412?), showing that Laispodias was made fun of for his calves: tad‹ d¢ tå d°ndra Lai!pod€a! ka‹ Dama!€a!/aÈta›!i ta›! knÆmai!in ékolouyoË!€ moi (fr. 107 PCG). The scholion also quotes from other plays. In Phrynichos' Kvma!ta€ (produced at the Dionysia of 414 with Birds) Laispodias is polemikoË gegonÒto! (fr. 17 PCG). Philyllios, in his PlÊntriai (produced, it is thought, between 406-400) calls Laispodias filodikÒ! (fr. 8 PCG). Strattis in Kinh!€a! (ca. 404) also ridiculed Laispodias for his legs (fr. 19 PCG). In Theopompos' Pa›de! (415?) , as in Aristophanes here, Laispodias wears his himation long because of his leg deformity (fr. 40 PCG).

[48] Damasias included? For Damasias cf. Eupolis fr. 107 PCG above and Davies, Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford 1971), p. 396, no. 10535 where he is the father of Naukrates who was named in a diadikasia of 380. While it is not certain that Damasias was his father, it nonetheless seems likely that both Laispodias and Damasias came from money, or at least had it. See further n. 279 below. Is it possible that both Damasias and Laispodias had leg deformities? This seems unlikely. Perhaps we should look for some other kind of joke for tad‹ tå d°ndra?

[49] Cf. polemikÒ! above in note 276 with, for example, Lamachos or Laches; or filodikÒ! above ibidem with any of the sycophants at which Aristophanes scoffs.

[50] Neither Laispodias nor Demaratos (also elected general in 414) appear in Davies's Athenian Propertied Families, but Pythodoros, similarly elected general in 414, does (no. 12402). Consequently, though we have no evidence to verify, it is probably likely that Laispodias came either from the landed aristocracy or from a family that had made its money otherwise (as Nikias, Kleon, and Hyperbolos had done).

[51] Thuk. 8,86.

[52] No doubt with sexual allusions as well. See Henderson MM2, p. 141, no. 152.

[53] For Alkibiades, I think, his love of Athens was so strong that he was willing to join forces with the Spartans or Persians in order once again to be in a position of power.

[54] Translation from Penguin Plutarch. In addition to this passage, Dunbar also mentions Dem. 19,314 in which Aiskhines is ridiculed for the same thing. Cf. also Katz, op. cit., 355 with n. 7. It is hard not to think of the young people today who wear their blue jeans low on their waists and allow the excess pant length to drag around their shoes and the ground.

[55] For Lamachos as an office-seeker, cf. Carter, Quiet Athenian, p. 116f.

[56] Eupolis also uses this word in his Cities (fr. 234). Sommerstein Knights has spoudarkhides as "an established colloquial word for a man who actively seeks elective office" (p. 186 ad loc.).

[57] Not to mention the kÒkkuge!! Cf. Av. 1571.

[58] Cf. Av. 1484, t∞i lÊxnvn §rhm€ai where Orestes, inter alia (?) a clothes-thief, could be found, and Dunbar ad loc. p. 691: "'the land without lamps ', is probably a punning surprise for t∞i Skuy«n •rhm€ai…"

[59] MacDowell Wasps, ad loc., p. 268.

[60] Though cf. MacDowell, "Foreign birth and Athenian citizenship in Aristophanes," in Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (Bari 1993) p. 365.

[61] At Xen. HG 1,7,2 he is ı toË dÆmou tÒte proe!thk≈! in 406.

[62] Trans. Sommerstein Birds.

[63] Cf. esp. 1335ff. in which the Sausage-seller (now Agorakritos) tells Demos how gullible he was before clever-speaking politicians; and 1355 where Demos finally says, afi!xÊnoma€ toi ta›! prÒteron èmart€ai!.

[64] 18,9.

[65] Cf. Brommer, The Sculptures of the Parthenon (London 1979), p. 48 (plate 115 and fig. 23 [drawing by Jacques Carrey]): "Cecrops can be identified on the left. His presence is essential as he was the umpire [of the contest between Athena and Poseidon]."

[66] Arrowsmith, "Aristophanes' Birds," Arion 1.1 (1973/4) pp. 137-9 discusses the significance of xão!, xã!kv, and xa€nv in the play. Among other things (the gaping of the birds and Peisetairos' mention at 1218 that Iris has penetrated toË xãou!), he creates the impression, without citing the passage, that the birds are born of Chaos and Eros (698).

[67] Cf. esp. Av. 44.

[68] Note again how sheepishly Poseidon yields to Herakles, the Triballian and Peisetairos. Cf. Poseidon at 1630-1: e‡ toi doke› !f«in taËta, kémo‹ !undoke›./oto!, doke› drçn taËta toË !kÆptrou p°ri, and Dunbar ad loc., p. 728.

[69] The opening paragraph is enough to confirm this, e·lonto [the Athenians] toÁ! ponhroÁ! êmeinon prãttein µ toÁ! xrh!tÒu!. It must be said, however, that here Poseidon is shown participating (as ambassador) unlike the Old Oligarch, who disapproves of any dealings with democracy. But the Old Oligarch's extreme position is more a sentiment than a necessary reality of Athens.

[70] Cf. 1650 and Dunbar ad loc.: "The 'laws' are those of Athens absurdly applied to the gods;…", and MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens (Oxford 1995), p. 220.

[71] Aristophanes in his Babylonians (426 at the Dionysia) criticized the demos for its gullibility before allied ambassadors in Assembly. For this cf. esp. Ach. 633-42 where Aristophanes takes pride in the admonition he made in Babylonians to the Athenians, paÊ!a! Ímç! [the Athenians] jeniko›!i lÒgoi!i mØ l€an §japat«nte!, mhd' ¥de!yai yvpeuom°nou!, mhd' e‰nai xaunopol€ta! (which is exactly what Peisetairos sees the birds as when he first meets them; cf. Av. 165). No doubt Aristophanes also has something like this in mind for this scene in Birds.

[72] It may also be worth noting that Athens was fonder of alliances with democracies (though the oligarchy of Chios was an exception) while the Spartans nurtured alliances with aristocracies and oligarchies.

[73] Dikaiopolis, Ach. 92-3, shouts in disgust at king of Persia's emissary, Pseudartabas, §kkÒcei° ge/kÒraj patãja! [this of the king's eye], tÚn !Ún toË pr°!bev!.

[74] The paradosis assigns 577 to Peisetairos and has Ímç! which Bergk emended to ≤mç!. Dunbar follows Bergk and assigns these lines to the chorus leader; Sommerstein follows the mss. Cf. Dunbar, p. 387 on 577-9. I follow Dunbar.

[75] He does this again with Herakles at 1672-3 when he offers to make him tÊranno! over Zeus if he joins the birds: this kind of persuasion sounds much like what Peisetairos says to the birds about their sovereignty at 467, o·tine! ¯nte! prÒteron ba!il∞!, with the chorus-leader's astounded response, ≤me›! ba!il∞!; t€no!;

[76] In my opinion, these are among the most striking lines of the play since they seem to beg the question 'why don't the gods help us with our crops, etc. when we sacrifice and perform the proper rituals for them?' The audience, however, may have seen something else also going on here. Demeter, with her excuses (profã!ei!) for her failure to provide for the people, may sound like a politician; while Apollo may resemble a fancy high-paid resident doctor who makes lots of money but in the end does not perform his job to satisfaction. See Dunbar, p. 389-90 for examples.

[77] Sokrates swears nØ tÚn kÊna at Pl. Ap. 22a1; Xanthias by the same at Vesp. 83; cf. also Kratinos' Cheirones, fr. 249 PCG: oÂ! ∑n m°gi!to! ˜rko! ~ëpanti lÒgvi~ kÊvn, ¶peita xÆn, yeoÁ! d' §!€gvn. The scholion for Pl. Ap. 22a1 says that this type of oath was ÑRadamãnyuo! ˜rko! and the scholion for Av. 521 quotes Sosikrates' Kretika for the same reason: apparently Rhadamanthys "was the first to forbid oaths by the gods, ordering men to swear by goose, dog, ram, and the like" (Dunbar, p. 357 ad 520-1).

[78] Dover GPM, p. 258. Dover cites Soph. OC 278-81 and Xen. Mem. 4,4,20 as examples, but for the omniscience of the gods, cf. also Hes. Op. 267: pãnta fid∆n DiÒ! ÙfyalmÚ! ka‹ pãnta noÆ!a!; Theognis 373f. (West): ZeË f€le, yaumãzv !e: !Ê går pãnte!!in énã!!ei!/ timØn aÈtÚ! ¶xvn ka‹ megãlhn dÊnamin,/ ényr≈pvn d' eÔ o‰!ya nÒon ka‹ yumÚn •kã!ton,/ !Ún d¢ krãto! pãntvn ¶!y' Ïpaton ba!ileË: but then the next lines, interestingly, question Zeus, p«! dÆ !eu Kron€dh tolmçi nÒo! êndra! élitrou!/§n taÈt∞i mo€rhi tÒn te d€kaion ¶xein; Eur. Bellerophon fr. 286, [Kritias/Euripides?] Sisyphos (if Eur.'s, was it produced in 415 as a satyr-play with Troades?) fr. 1 Nauck2, Eur. Heracl. 1340ff. in conjunction with Antiphon fr. 10 (both contain the sentiment, de›tai går ı yeÚ! oÈdenÒ!), and much later, even, Sallustios, 16,1, aÈtÚ m¢n går tÚ ye›on énende°!, reflecting on pãnte! ofl pãlai.

[79] Cf. Plescia, Oath and Perjury in Ancient Greece (Tallahassee 1970), p. 87ff. This also calls to mind 'sophistic relativism' (a term I take from the same-named chapter in Kerferd's The Sophistic Movement [Cambridge 1981]) and sophists ability to make an untruth a truth. Cf. Kerferd, op. cit., pp. 84-5; 165-7 on Protagoras' agnosticism; and, of course, Right and Wrong Argument in Clouds. Cf. Matthew Dillon, "By Gods, Tongues, and Dogs: The Use of Oaths in Aristophanic Comedy," G & R (42) 1995, 135-51 for a thorough but over-simplistic account of the evidence.

[80] Further examples of Athenians not taking oaths seriously are Plut. Lys. 8,3 (ap. Plescia, p. 87), Pl. Leg. 12,948b-d and Xen. Mem. 1,1,19 (ap. Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion [Chapel Hill 1983], p. 38). Cf. also Dunbar, p. 723 ad 1606-13.

[81] 1615 may well be only gibberish, and it is therefore difficult to know if the Triballian agrees or disagrees. Dunbar (p. 724-5 ad 1615), following Bayard (Rev. de Phil. 44 (1920) 30) understands him to say something like na€, Ba!atreu ( = Pei!°taire).

[82] dia!of€ze!yai, which according to the scholion for this line = §japatçi; one should recall Lampon of Av. 521.

[83] Peisetairos, e.g., uses it for returning the scepter to the birds (1601), and Herakles too when he agrees after Peisetairos' second offer of alliance (1626).

[84] For other technical language (also involving debt) cf. §napote›!ai of 38 and Dunbar ad loc.

[85] Eq. 1367 (naval); Nub. 245, 1243, 1252, and 1278; Vesp. 1128; Av. 116; Lys. 1057 and 1163 where it is used of DiallagÆ. Cf. also ML 43 (470-440): fines to be rendered by outlaws; ML 49 (445): money paid to colonists (by Aiskhines) when they settled. Other uses in comedy (when money or debt is not involved): Ach. 1225 (tÚn é!kÒn for Dik. who declares that he has won the drinking contest at the Anthesteria that he celebrates [for the timing between the Rural Dionysia and the Anthesteria Dik. celebrates, see recently Martha Habash AJPh 116:4 (1995) 559-577]); Vesp. 95 (dãktulon) 1347 (t«i p°ei tvid‹ xãrin); Av. 480 (scepter), 1626 (scepter); Ran. 270 (tÚn naËlon).

[86] ML 58A (Kallias financial decree, 434-3): épodÒnai to›! yeo›! tå xr°mata tå ÙfelÒmena. This debt may have been incurred during the Persian wars (ML, p. 159; cf. also Meiggs, Athenian Empire [Oxford 1972], Appendix 11); LGS 2,13 (418): paying money, érgÊrion to a temple of Neleus for filÊ! taken from a tãfro!. Cf. also LGS 2,41.

[87] Thuk. 8,107 and Lys. 16,6.

[88] SIG3 522,15; 554,15; 563,10; 826,I,10. But cf. Thuk. 2,95,1 where both épodidÒnai and énaprãttein are used; though they are used more generally of keeping promises.

[89] Early 420s? There are parodies in Clouds (172-3 = Nub. 1165-6 and 161 = 718ff.).

[90] This is the same Aristodemos (LGPN s.v., no. 46) who in Pl. Symp. attends Agathon's victory party. At the beginning of the dialogue he is described (as we might expect an avatar of Sokrates to be described, cf. Symp. 174a4) as énupÒdhto! ée€.

[91] DK78,B8.

[92] For a full and clear discussion of atheism in the fifth century, see Drachmann's still fundamental work, Atheism in Pagan Antiquity (London 1922), esp. chapter IV, "Sophistic and Its Influence," pp. 35-63.

[93] Nauck2 286.

[94] ibid. 292.

[95] ibid. fr. 480.

[96] But cf. A. Ag. 160, ZeÊ! ˜!ti! pÒt' §!tin, a statement of true piety that Euripides in his play seems to transform into an expression of doubt. Cf. Fraenkel Agamemnon ad loc. for the ancient piety, vetus cultus deorum, in which Aischylos' passage, and so Euripides', should be considered.

[97] Burkert GR 246-50.

[98] ibid. p. 247.

[99] Henderson MM2, p. 112: the word is not a double entendre but inherently improper.

[100] For a contrary view, cf. Eugenio Corsini who has most recently discussed the presentation of state religion in Aristophanes He claims that "Aristofane non è un nostalgico paladino delle religione tradizionale," and that the "valutazione negativa della religione ufficiale sembra di poter intravedere, da parte Aristofane, un'accusa di collusione tra i due aspetti, quello politico e quello religioso dello Stato, per cui il suo attacco alla religione si configura come complementare di quello che egli conduce il regime politico." "La religione nelle commedie di Aristofane," in Biagio Amata (ed.), Cultura e Lingue Classiche 3, (Roma 1993) p. 86, and his earlier, but similar, contribution, "La polemica contro la religione di Stato in Aristofane" in idem (ed.), La polis e il suo teatro, (Padova 1986) 149-183.

[101] It may be worth remembering that throughout the play Peisetairos has the idea not only of reestablishing the birds but also of making Athens a better place. Cf., e.g., 586ff.

[102] Dunbar, following Fraenkel Agamemnon ad 1242, call Pan the protector of inhabitants living wild on mountain tops.

[103] Cf. also fr. 95.

[104] For the meaning, cf. Fraenkel, ibidem.

[105] The two are also associated in votive reliefs. For the evidence, cf. Parker, Athenian Religion, p. 167 n. 50. Pan had a cult in Athens after the battle of Marathon and Philippides famous encounter with the god in Arkadia (near Tegea) on his way to Sparta. Cf. Hdt. 6,105 and generally Parker, ibidem, pp. 161-8.

[106] "Since Pindar at least, the retinue of Meter Kybele is seen as one with the Dionysian throng," Burkert GR, p. 179.

[107] Boardman ABFV 281. Pan does not appear in the plastic arts before 500.

[108] Boardman ARFVArch 335.1.

[109] Boardman ARFVClass 86.

[110] See discussion above pp. 21-3.

[111] Burkert GR, p. 110; Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley 1951), pp. 78-80; and now Lynn Roller, "The Mother of Gods in Attic Tragedy," in E. N. Lane (ed.), Cybele, Attis and Related Cults (Leiden 1996) 305-321.

[112] Parker, Athenian Religion, p. 160.

[113] Though we have no way of knowing, I would not be surprised if these two odes of the first parabasis were accompanied by an aulos playing in the Phrygian mode, a mode typically associated with ecstatic cults. West, Greek Music (Oxford 1992), pp. 181 and 355.

[114] Roller, op. cit., p. 319.

[115] Cf. Parker's long-needed chapter on new gods in Athens in his Athenian Religion.

[116] Cf., e.g., Newiger, "Gedanken," in Aretes Mneme (Athens 1983) and Niev, "L'enigma", Euphrosyne 17 (1989). Dunbar, p. 12, agrees that Peisetairos is meant to be a sympathetic character.

[117] The size of the audience at Birds was probably upwards of 15,000; cf. DFA2, p. 262. Naturally, different political and religious constituencies would have been represented. But in order to win the competition Aristophanes' plays had to appeal to the ten judges who were chosen from the ten tribes, though not exactly randomly since the list from each tribe may have been made under the influence of choregoi. Were most of the potential judges, before they were even chosen, members of the upper class, both landed and not? Does this mean, then, that the judges were upper class men? Did this, in turn, affect the playwright and the content of the play?

[118] MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens, p. 175.

[119] Ibid., p. 227.

[120] See esp. Zimmermann, "Utopisches," WJA 9 (1983) pp. 57-61 and Reckford 330-345.

[121] Konstan, Greek Comedy and Ideology (Oxford 1995), pp. 33-4 identifies an 'anomia', 'antinomia', 'eunomia' and 'megalonomia' all of which, according to Konstan, describe Nephelokokkygia at certain moments in the play. Anomia, e.g, describes the birds' lack of Athenian customs. Antinomia describes the birds statement that whatever is bad in Athens is good in Nephelokokkygia (756). Eunomia describes Nephelokokkygia, e.g., when Peisetairos advises the father-beater to join the military in Thrace (1337ff.). And Megalonomia, for Konstan, describes Peisetairos' fantastic creation.

[122] I am here dependent on Lewis Mumford's distinctions and classifications of utopias. The utopia of reconstruction is "a vision of a reconstituted environment which is better adapted to the nature and aims of the human beings who dwell within it than the actual one; and not merely better adapted to their actual nature, but better fitted to their possible developments," The Story of Utopias (New York 1950; orig. 1922), p. 21.

[123] Bowie, Aristophanes Myth, Ritual and Comedy (Cambridge 1993), p. 15.

[124] Cf., e.g., the Plataeans, Thuk. 2,75ff.

[125] Even the existence of the notheia, mentioned here in Birds, is questioned most recently by Tod, Shape of Athenian Law (Oxford 1993), p. 211: "whatever the civic status of the illegitimate children of two citizen parents, they cannot take the place of legitimate sons and inherit their father's oikos".

[126] Prometheus says the same at 1494.

[127] Even though the conventional perception toward nÒyoi was straitforward — they were illegitimate and unable to inherit o‰koi —, there are some fragments from the tragedians that suggest that arguments from physis challenged this view. Cf. Eur. fr. 141 (from his Andromeda of 412), 168 (his Antigone, no date), 377 (his Erechtheus Satyrikos, also no date), and Soph. fr. 84 Nauck2 (his Sons of Aleus, no date).

[128] Burkert GR, pp. 209-11 has as major themes in Herakles' mythic life (for which there is no single account), his association with animals ("first and foremost"), his death, his strength, sexual potency, youthfulness (perhaps here, in Birds, set off against Poseidon's elderly manner), his voracious eating (a major element of his annual festival and many private cults in Attika, e.g., Marathon), and his being a ruler prototype and "model for the common man." Burkert does not mention Herakles as nÒyo!, though in a footnote he does mention a relevant passage in Athenaios.

[129] Deubner AF 226-7; Travlos 340-1; Parke Festivals 51-2 and IG II2 1245 and 1247 — the evidence for the festival and the month is slim.

[130] Travlos, p. 291, fig. 379 (no. 192).

[131] Parke Festivals, p. 51. Cf. also Athenaios 6,234e and Dunbar ad loc. 1649-50, p. 730 who also cites Plut. Them. 1.

[132] He might even adopt a daughter for this purpose as Hagnias did by adopting his niece, but this must have been very unusual (Isaios 11,8; ap. Tod, Shape of Athenian Law, p. 217).

[133] Tod, op. cit., p. 231 where he defends the idea that "The epiklerate therefore reflects the centrality of the oikos in Athenian thought…" against Schaps, The Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh 1979), who argues that the epiklerate did not serve to perpetuate the father's estate because it would have produced two estates for the future grandson: one from the dead grandfather and one from the future father.

[134] ad 1657-9, p. 732.

[135] So the scholion for 1653: §pa€nvi t∞! ÉAyhnç! ka‹ t∞! pÒlev! toËtÒ fh!in, kt•.

[136] p. 219 ad 1653.

[137] p. 731 ad 1653-4.

[138] Already in Birds the masculine nature of Athena had been made fun of at 829-30: yeÚ! gunØ gegonu›a panopl€an… ¶xou!a, kt•.

[139] As the scholion for 1653 notes: efi!‹ d¢ ka‹ t«i Di‹ gnÆ!ioi uflo‹, ÖArh! ka‹ ÜHfai!to!.

[140] The language at 1514 where Prometheus announces Zeus' condition, épÒlvlen, could mean 'Zeus is ruined' or 'Zeus has perished'; Peisetairos thinks the latter when he asks Prometheus, phn€k' êtt'. Cf. Dunbar ad loc., p. 699.

[141] Or so it seems, for luxuriousness. Cf. Vesp. 508, its first occurrence in Greek literature.