Aristophanes’s ‘The Birds’ is one of the great dramatic comedies from all of classical antiquity. It is the story of Euelpides and Pisthetaerus, two old Athenians, who are disgusted with the litigiousness, wrangling and sycophancy of their countrymen, and resolve upon quitting Attica. Having heard of the fame of Epops (the hoopoe), sometime called Tereus, and now King of the Birds, they determine, under the direction of a raven and a jackdaw, to seek from him and his subject birds a city free from all care and strife.