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Aristophanes, Birds 65: the Libyan Bird

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alessandra Coppola
Alessandra Coppola
Affiliation:
Università di Padova
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Extract

Euelpides and Peisthetaerus have just left Athens, looking for a better place to settle. Frightened by the arrival of Tereus' servant, they introduce themselves as birds. Peisthetaerus says that he is ‘Fearfowl, a Libyan bird’:

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , December 1999 , pp. 622 - 623
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1999

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References

1 Translation by Sommerstein, A. H., Birds (Warminster, 1987).Google Scholar

2 Sommerstein (n. 1), 204; Dunbar, N., Aristophanes. Birds (Oxford, 1995), 156–7.Google Scholar

3 See e.g. J. Dalfen, ‘Politik und Utopie in den Vögeln des Aristophanes (zur Ar., Vögeln 451–638)', BIFG 2 (1975), 268–85; Kate, B. R., ‘The Birds of Aristophanes and Politics’, Athenaeum 54 (1976), 353–81Google Scholar; Mastromarco, G., ‘Le mura di Temistocle e le mura di Nubicucculia', QS 6 (1977), 41–50Google Scholar; Chiavarino, B., ‘Oikisate mian polin’, in Pious eis Sikelian (Alessandria, 1992), 81–97Google Scholar; Vickers, M., ‘Alcibiades on stage: Aristophanes“ Birds’, Historia 38 (1989), 267–99Google Scholar; ibid., ‘Alcibiades at Sparta: Aristophanes’Birds’, CQ 45 (1995), 339–54.

4 Thuc. 7.50.1–2. For Neapolis-Nabeul cf. Gomme, A. W., Andrews, A., Dover, K. J., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 4 (Oxford, 1970), 428Google Scholar; for Leptis Magna see Malkin, I., ‘Territorialisation mythologique: les ‘autels des Philènes’ en Cyrènaïque’, DHA 16 (1990), 219–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 This is the region of the Little Syrte; cf. Pol. 1.82.6, 3.23.2, 31.21.1; Liv. 29.25.12, 34.62.3; Bresson, A., ‘Les cités grecque et leur emporia’, in L' Emporion (Paris, 1993), 163–231, particularly 206–7.Google Scholar

6 Prof. C. Collard suggested to me that ὐποδεδὡνς and ༐πικεΧοδώς are, surely deliberately, syllabic and rhythmic equivalents, and show assonance …one might argue that here it draws attention to the implication of the names as well as to the excremental joke’. I agree.

On the boundaries of Athenian empire in Aristophanes cf. Coppola, A., Archaiologhìa e propaganda (Roma, 1995), 73.Google Scholar Another suggested allusion to Carthage in Aristophanes is in Ehrenberg, V., The People of Aristophanes (Oxford, 1951), 121Google Scholar, n. 1.