ances,
always attended by Pan and his accompanying rout of Fauns and Satyrs.

f(13) An allusion to cock-fighting; the birds are armed with brazen
spurs.

f(14) An allusion to the spots on this bird, which resemble the scars
left by a branding iron.

f(15) He was of Asiatic origin, but wished to pass for an Athenian.

f(16) Or Philamnon, King of Thrace; the scholiast remarks that the
Phrygians and the Thracians had a common origin.

f(17) The Greek word here is also the name of a little bird.

f(18) A basket-maker who had become rich.--The Phylarchs were the
headmen of the tribes. They presided at the private assemblies and were
charged with the management of the treasury.--The Hipparchs, as the name
implies, were the leaders of the cavalry; there were only two of these
in the Athenian army.

f(19) He had become a senator.

PISTHETAERUS Halloa! What's this? By Zeus! I never saw anything so funny
in all my life.(1)

f(1) Pisthetaerus and Euelpides now both return with wings.

EUELPIDES What makes you laugh?

PISTHETAERUS 'Tis your bits of wings. D'you know what you look like?
Like a goose painted by some dauber-fellow.

EUELPIDES And you look like a close-shaven blackbird.

PISTHETAERUS 'Tis ourselves asked for this transformation, and, as
Aeschylus has it, "These are no borrowed feathers, but truly our
own."(1)

f(1) Meaning, 'tis we who wanted to have these wings.--The verse from
Aeschylus, quoted here, is taken from 'The Myrmidons,' a tragedy of
which only a few fragments remain.

EPOPS Come now, what must be done?

PISTHETAERUS First give our city a great and famous name, then sacrifice
to the gods.

EUELPIDES I think so too.

EPOPS Let's see. What shall our city be called?

PISTHETAERUS Will you have a high-sounding Laconian name? Shall we call
it Sparta?

EUELPIDES What! call my town Sparta? Why, I would not use esparto for my
bed,(1) even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.

f(1) The Greek word signified the city of Sparta, and also a kind of
broom used for weaving rough matting, which served for the beds of the
very poor.

PISTHETAERUS Well then, what name can you suggest?

EUELPIDES Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions
in which we dwell--in short, some well-known name.

PISTHETAERUS Do you like Nephelococcygia?(1)

f(1) A fanciful name constructed from (the word for) a cloud,
and (the word for) a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and
cuckoos.--'