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Early in the play, Peisetairos comically contrasts his and Euelpides’ in-tention to leave Athens for a better place with Sakas’ effort to gain Athe-nian citizenship (31). The Scholia inform us thatS\jaris a comic name for the dramatist Akestor (TGrF 1 no.25 Snell) to imply barbarian ori-gin: he was often mocked in comedy for foreign birth (cf. V. 1221).⁴⁸⁶ The nickname is derived from the ethnic Sakai, a Persian name used for the Scythians of central Asia,⁴⁸⁷but there is evidence that it was also used as a personal name.⁴⁸⁸

Lines 125 – 6 contain a pun of an unusual type. The Hoopoe misreads in Peisetairos’ decision to abandon Athens a preference for an aristocratic regime, which the hero denies, claiming to hate the son of Skellias:⁴⁸⁹

EP. )qistojqate?shai d/kor eW fgt_m.

PE. 9c¾.

Fjista7 ja· t¹m Sjekk¸ou bdek¼ttolai.

485 Note especially the reversal of moral order associated with the hero’s ideal city (128 ff.; cf. 756 – 7), presented as the product of sophistic education in Clouds;

the right to beat one’s father, instilled by Pheidippides’ sophistic training, is es-tablished by law in Cloudcuckooland (1347 – 8). However, Peisetairos eventu-ally restores normal order (1353 – 69).

486 Sch. Av. 31a-b. Further instances collected by Sommerstein 1987: 203.

487 See further Dunbar 1995: 146 – 7, who mentions Old Persian epigraphical evi-dence.

488 One attestation from the Kimmerian Bosporos (fourth century, LGPN IV).

Sakas is the name of Astyages’ (Kyros’ Median grandfather) cupbearer and serv-ant in X. Cyr. 1.3 – 4.

489 On the form of this name (which probably originated in a sobriquet meaning

‘Long-leg’, Bechtel 1898: 35) see Dunbar 1995: 173 – 4.

j Sjekk¸ouis not named, but seems to have been prominent enough for the audience to know his name. This was)qistojq\tgr, a man known to have held various public offices and to have co-signed Nikias’

peace.⁴⁹⁰The name is very common (123 attestations in Athens alone) and frequent use can obscure etymological significance, but the preced-ing !qistojqate?shai draws attention to the meaning of the implied name and explains Peisetairos’ hatred of its bearer.

Tereus’ effort to suggest places where the heroes could settle inspires two onomastic jokes. K]pqeor(149), which Euelpides says he hates be-cause of Melanthios, is in the neutral form the name of a real town in Elis in the Peloponnese; it is only mentioned here because of its simi-larity tok]pqa, a skin disease (clearly not the equivalent of modern ‘lep-rosy’, but a much less serious affliction) from which the tragic poet Mel-anthios suffered. The joke is evidently directed against the poet and not the town itself, as is further suggested by the use of a masculine form for the place-name to agree with Melanthios and imply the adjective kepq|r.⁴⁹¹ Tereus’ alternative suggestion, Opous (Kojq_dor ipo}mtioi, 152), is put forward only to enable a pun between the ethnic and the name of a real man called Opountios, known for being one-eyed (cf. 1294); this explains why Euelpides dreads becoming an Opountios, even 1p· tak\mt\ wqus_ou. The name only has two known bearers, both from fifth century Athens (LGPN IIA), and it is likely to reflect some sort of personal connection between an Athenian and an Opoun-tian, of the xenos-guest friend type.⁴⁹²

The initial clash between chorus and heroes makes the latter fear for their lives. To Euelpides’ question about a possible burial place for the two of them, should they be killed in a ‘battle’ against the birds, Jeqaleij|r(395) appears to be the obvious answer: not only is it the dis-490 On him see further Sommerstein (1987: 207) and Dunbar (1995: 173), who rightly think that no inference should be drawn about his politics from the im-plied word-play, despite the Scholia (cf. Halliwell 1984: 86).

491 See Dunbar (1995: 182), citing a suggestion made by Fraenkel.

492 See Herman 1987: 19 – 22. This is a far more likely naming-motive than Athe-nian conquest of Opuntian Lokris around 457 (assumed by Sommerstein 1987:

209), even if the xenia perhaps occurred in the context of closer relations be-tween Athens and Opous. The nameJaqust|mijor, which occurs in an Athe-nian casualty list of 447 (LGPN IIA), and which must refer to the AtheAthe-nian cap-ture of Karystos ca.472, is more than a simple ethnic.

6.2 Other significant names 111

trict of the main Athenian cemetery, where war casualties were normal-ly buried (Th. 2.34), but also evokes j]qalor ‘clay’,⁴⁹³and is thus asso-ciated with the nature of the battle described in the previous lines, one fought entirely with potter-pots (357 – 65).⁴⁹⁴ iqmea_(399), as the imagined place in the world of the birds where the battle happens, puns on eqmea ‘birds’; but it was also the real name of an Argolid town which, a year before the production of Birds, was captured by Athens without a fight (Th. 6.7) and thus became associated with the anticipation of a battle that never happened. The memory of this event, still quite fresh, would add an ironic hint to Peisetairos’ expect-ation of death at a locexpect-ation where no fighting ever took place.⁴⁹⁵ In a story comically used by Peisetairos to provide an argument for the birds’ alleged primeval antiquity,⁴⁹⁶ the ‘first bird’ (a joqud|r ‘crested lark’) had to provide a burial place for her father in her own body, as the Earth was not yet in existence, and eventually buried him in her own head. Euelpides then amusingly identifies the location of this ‘cem-etery’ as the deme Kephale (476) because of the name’s etymological connection with jevak^‘head’, while the joke is made more effective by the fact that this deme was the location of a large cemetery.⁴⁹⁷ Part of Peisetairos’ argumentation for the birds’ supremacy is the claim that a bird was the first king of Persia, before Daqe¸ou ja· Lecab²fou (484).⁴⁹⁸ Both Persian names were familiar to Greek ears: the name Dareios was famously associated with the Persian wars and the expedi-tion that culminated in the battle of Marathon. There was no real Per-493 This must be the real etymology of Kerameikos, perhaps reflecting the fact that the district was popular with potters (jeqale?r). Cf. Chantraine (1999 s.v.j]qa -lor), who distinguishes it from the allegedly Karian toponymJ]qalor. 494 Both suggestions are found in the Scholia, though Kakridis (1982: 89) may be

right that a pun onj]qalorwas not necessarily intended by the poet, especially given the lack of a specific word-play.

495 See further Dunbar 1995: 289, citing Schroeder’s suggestion.

496 The story, unattested in what we have of the Aesopian corpus (despite Peise-tairos’ claim), must be of near Eastern origin (Ael. NA 16.5).

497 See further Dunbar’s note (1995: 327).

498 Thus MSS, followed by Wilson, Hall-Geldart, Zanetto and Dunbar ; Sommer-stein (1987), like Coulon (followed also by Kakridis), print Haupt’s conjecture, Daqe¸ym ja· Lecab²fym(to agree with the precedingp\mtym). Dunbar (1995:

331), however, rightly thought that two singular names in apposition top\m -tymare possible, and plurals afterp\mtymwould hardly be changed to singulars.

sian king called Lec²bafor – or Lec²bufor, which is an alternative reading – but both names belonged to Persian officials, and it seems that the Athenians could refer to these as kings. Megabazos, which was perhaps the equivalent of Bagabadush,⁴⁹⁹ was certainly familiar to Greek ears: two were mentioned by Herodotus, a commander of Dare-ios in Thrace (Hdt. 4.143 – 4, 5.1 – 26), and an admiral with Xerxes’

fleet (Hdt. 7.97; perhaps also Th. 1.109.2 – 3). So was Megabyzos, which must be a corrupted form of Lec²bunor (perhaps under the in-fluence of Megabazos), the hellenised version of Bagabukhsa.⁵⁰⁰ It is the name of various Persians (two in Hdt. 3.70 – 87, 7.82, one in Th. 1.109.3, one in Plu. Mor. 58 d), while the form Megabyxos is a fre-quent varia lectio in Herodotean MSS and also appears in two fourth cen-tury inscriptions from Priene;⁵⁰¹it was finally the title of the high priest of Artemis at Ephesos (X. An. 5.3.6; Str. 14.1.23, 641).⁵⁰² Both are therefore possible, and both bear witness to the influence of folk-etymo-logical principles on the hellenisation of foreign names;⁵⁰³ in fact the comic poet Crates (of Cratinus’ generation) may have used Lecab}fou (fr. 37) as a comic name to express delusions of grandeur.⁵⁰⁴However, here the reading Lec²bafor is preferable on the basis of its comic sig-nificance: its closeness in sound to l´ca b²feim made it suggestive of someone who ‘talks big, boasts’, which can be meant as a mockery of the Persian king.⁵⁰⁵

499 Meca- was the common hellenisation of Persian Baga- names, cf.Lecab\tgr (Old Persian *Baga-pa¯ta-), after the many Greek M^eca- names. The seemingly difficult transition from *Baga- to Meca- is better explained by assuming an in-termediary link *Maga-, based on the characteristic Lycian m/b alternation ; see Schmitt 1971: 8 – 11.

500 A significant name (baga- ‘god’), thought to mean ‘freed by the god’ or (active-ly) ‘giving joy to the god’. See Burkert 2004: 106.

501 IPr. 3 and 231; cf. BE 6 (1968 – 70): 437 – 8 (Nis used to represent the phoneme which Attic-Ionic represents asF).

502 According to Burkert (2004: 105 – 7) the nameLec²bunorbears testimony to the cultural interaction between Greeks and Persians before the great war; as the title of a priest of Artemis it was probably meant to demonstrate sacred sta-tus, and to suggest to the Persians that they had to respect the divine (= the sanctuary of the goddess). But see also Bremmer (2004: 9 – 10) for a different view.

503 Cf. Tsitsibakou-Vasalos 2007: 28 – 9 and Introduction p. 3.

504 As suggested by Luc. Tim. 22 and Hsch. (vol.2 [Latte]: 635)Lecab}feioi k|coi

=^lec\koi; see K-A 4: 104.

505 Cf. Dunbar 1995: 332. See also Sommerstein 1987: 228. The Scholium on 484b seems to favour Lec²bufor (because of the quotation referring to the

6.2 Other significant names 113

Once the hero’s proposal to form a bird-city has met with the birds’ ap-proval, he urges them to act fast and not lekkomiji÷m (639). The infin-itive is a comic compound withl]kkeimand the name of the general Ni-kias, that suggests the meaning ‘hesitate like Nikias’ (1syjq\tym ‘be-haved like Sokrates’ at 1282 is a similar formation, though not a com-pound); the ending –i\y is typical of verbs denoting illness,⁵⁰⁶ which might add the nuance of ‘have the illness of hesitation’. Lekko- is used in an original fashion (in the few other compounds with l]kky it has a different sense),⁵⁰⁷to carry a joke at Nikias’ expense for delaying decisions and action, perhaps implying a comment on the way he han-dled aspects of the Sicilian expedition.⁵⁰⁸

The name Orestes, used by the chorus in the parabasis for a mugger (712), was discussed earlier under Ach. 1166 – 8 (where it appeared to be a symbol of madness); its meaning here is equally obscure, although it seems to have a rather different function. Perhaps the name is used here for generically negative connotations emerging from its heroic background and the Greeks’ known fear of meeting a dead hero at night (cf. 1490 – 1).⁵⁰⁹If the name is meant to evoke the hero Orestes,⁵¹⁰ it could alternatively be associated with illegal acts or aggressive behav-iour because of some of his life events (he caused the death of Neopto-lemos by leading him into a trap, Eur. Andr. 1085 – 1160) or because of his name’s etymological hint at _eqor, suggesting someone who led a rough life on the mountains.⁵¹¹In the possibility of a real contemporary

Megabyzos in Th. 1.109.2), but this may be an ancient variant. Hornblower (1991: 175) has Lec\bafor but suspectsLec\bunor to be the correct form.

506 Cf. avhakli\y, podacq\y and the Aristophanic wefgti\y (790), belbiji\y (1465) etc.; see Kakridis’ note (1982: 231).

507 It denotes what is about to happen, cf.lekk|calor/lekk|mulvorand the Aris-tophanic lekkodeipmij|m(l]kor, Ec. 1153), a song played in advance of an up-coming dinner.

508 See Dunbar 1995: 3, 414.

509 Dunbar 1995: 453.

510 A possibility that cannot be excluded, despite Hofmann (1976: 200 – 3) who thought it evoked the homonymous Thessalian throne usurper (Th. 1.111) – but at the same time suggested that the coincidence with the heroic name was used by the poet to create a comic mythos.

511 Cf. the poetic adjectiveaq]steqor=aqeim|randM}lvaiaqesti\der‘mountain nymphs’. See also Kakridis 1982: 258.

(who stole clothes, but perhaps this was an exaggerated or even false reputation),⁵¹² the satire may be directed against him.

Peisetairos’ encounter with annoying visitors to his new city includes a distinct type of onomastic joke, which involves names of historical peo-ple used as by-names for qualities associated with their bearers: the first one, the name of the famous sixth century philosopher Thales (Hak/r 1009), is bestowed in irony on Meton (a well-known fifth century geo-meter and astronomer), for scientific cleverness,⁵¹³which in Peisetairos’

view he does not display. Sardanapallos (1021), the name of an Assyrian king which for the Greeks carried associations of effeminacy, is used in a similar ironic reaction to the self-important tone of another visitor, an Athenian inspector, and presents him as a degenerate character.⁵¹⁴ Prometheus calls himself a Timon (1549)⁵¹⁵ for hating all gods. This name, which may or may not have originated in a real person, was sym-bolic of man-hating behaviour:⁵¹⁶ Prometheus becomes the equivalent of Timon in the divine sphere.

Poseidon calls the Triballian a born Kaispod_ar (1569); the name, which belonged to a known politician, here connotes his habit to wear his cloak long in order to conceal his badly-shaped calves.⁵¹⁷ The Triballian presumably wore his clumsily, and the effect it produced resembled that of Laispodias’ (at least for the lower part of the body).

512 Sommerstein 1980: 211.

513 Cf. Strepsiades’ expression of his admiration for Sokrates’ ‘genius’ (Nu. 180).

See Dunbar 1995: 559 for references to a similar use of the name in New Com-edy.

514 On the identity of Sardanapallos, a conflation of various Assyrian rulers, see Dunbar 1995: 563 – 4.

515 This part of 1549 is attributed to Peisetairos by Dunbar (followed by Zanetto);

this gains support from the fact that other such ironic names for visitors were spoken by him.

516 On the misanthropic type, popular in comedy, see Dunbar’s note (1995:

708 – 9). Aristophanes refers to Timon also in Lys. 805 – 28.

517 See further Sommerstein (1987: 302) who enumerates other charges brought against him by comedians. Apparently letting their cloak hang to the ground was a stylistic choice for Alkibiades and Aeschines, for which they were both criticised, see Dunbar 1995: 716 with references.

6.2 Other significant names 115