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124 to represent the ultimate designs of Alcibiades in urging the expedition of the Athenians to Sicily,—no less than the subjugation of Italy, Carthage, and Libya, and obtaining the sovereignty of the Mediterranean: by which the Spartans (the gods of the comedy) would be cut off from intercourse with the smaller states, here represented by the men. He considers that in Peisthetærus we have Alcibiades, compounded with some traits of the sophist Gorgias, whose pupil he is said to have been. Iris's threat of the wrath of her father Jupiter—which certainly is more seriously worded than the general tone of the play—he takes to be a prognostication of the unhappy termination of the expedition, a feeling shared by many at Athens; while in the transfer of Basileia—all the real power—to Peisthetærus, and not to the Birds, he foreshadows the probable results of the personal ambition of Alcibiades. Such an explanation receives support from many other passages in the comedy, and is worked out by the writer with great pains and ability.