Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

Nephelokokkygia 63

of more than one new political combination1. The Argives in a sense
held the balance between Athens and Sparta, a fact that the play-
wright fully appreciated2. And at Argos there had been a deal of
wobbling. The successive alliances of the Argives with the Athenians
(420), with the Spartans (418), and with the Athenians again (417)
must have been received at Athens with alternate outbursts of
enthusiasm and disgust. What the Athenian 'optimist,' the Euel-
pides of the moment, really wanted was a staunch and loyal ally,
a 'trusty comrade,' a Pist.Iietairosz.

More than that. If, while the play was being drafted, popular
attention was thus directed to Argos, it may fairly be surmised
that Aristophanes' castle-in-the-air Nephelokokkygia contained—
inter alia\ no doubt—an allusion to the Argive Mount Kok-
kygion5 with its myth of Zeus the cuckoo6. Aristotle7 tells the story.

1 See e.g. J. B. Bury A History of Greece London 1900 p. 458 ff., W. S. Ferguson in
The Cambridge Ancient History Cambridge 1927 v. 256 ff.

2 Aristoph. pax 475 ff. '

;i That this is the true form of the name appears from Corp. inscr. Att. ii. 3 no.
1723 on an architrave of Pentelic marble in the church of St Theodoras near the village
of Marousi PISTOKAHS : PI?OETAIPO : AOMONEY? (K. Meisterhans
Grammatik cier attischen Inschriflen3 Berlin 1900 p. ,14). E. Wiist loc. cit. 1923 cxcv. 151
deems this evidence 'nicht zwingend.' He is hard to please.

4 A. Todesco ' KOKKTS' in Philologus 1914—1916 lxxiii. 563—567 (an article which
Prof. A. D. Nock kindly brought to my notice) thinks that $te<pe\oKOKKVyla was a name in-
vented by Aristophanes (Loukian. ver. hist. 29), in accordance with Greek usage, to denote
a chaos of clouds (av. 178) and a babble of political intriguers (Ach. 598). 'Ganz
vernunftig wtirde auch diese neue Erklarung sein: Tse(pe\oKOKKvyla. sei die Idealstadt der
schlauen Feiglinge, welche auf Kosten des Nachsten leben wollen. Wenn man besonders
den Begriff der Schlauheit betont, so sind diese kokkvjcs die Demagogen, und wir sehen
im Hintergrund die anderen Leute, die Athener, welche Kexv°t(s alle Prahlereien ernst
nehmen.'

6 A similar allusion to Argive topography occurs in Aristoph. av. 399 aivodavuv iv
'Opveats, where again the name is selected partly because it suggests birds (opvea) and
partly because the town was uppermost in the thoughts of the people owing to its capture
by Athenians and Argives in 416 B.C. Miss R. E. White (Mrs N. Wedd) in the Class.
Rev. 1904 xviii. 100 f. finds the same point in av. 15 f. 5s tw5' ttpaaice vQv tppaetw rbv
T-npia I rbv Ivoip', 5s 6'pis iyirer in tup dpvtwv and aptly defends the variation in the use
of the article by citing Thouk. 6. 7 tous iv 'Opveais...ol ck t&v'Opvewv.

Does the oracle in av. 967 f. dXX' 6rav oU-qauaL Xwcoi 7ro\iai re Kop&vai \ ev TavTif to
/xeTa^i Kopiv6ov nai Zlkvuvos,—j k.t.A. refer to the alliance of Argos, whose symbol was
the wolf, with Corinth (Kopivdos—Kopuivrf)}

F. Creuzer Symbolik und Mythologie* Leipzig and Darmstadt 1841 iii. 248 n. 2 saw
that Nephelokokkygia stood in some relation to Mt Kokkygion or Thornax in Argolis
(supra i. 135, ii- 893 n. 2), but thought that the topic might have been suggested to
Aristophanes by the existence of another Mt Thornax near Sparta (supra ii. 893 n. 2).

0 Nilsson Min.-Myc. Rel. p. 481 contributes an acute surmise : 'Zeus often appears as
a lover in the guise of a bird. As a swan he begot the Dioscuri at Sparta, at Argos it was
said that in the shape of a cuckoo he deceived Hera and won her love on the Mountain of