The Birds

At the time Aristophanes produced The Birds, in 414 BCE, the Athenians had just embarked on the Sicilian Expedition. The Sicilian Expedition was a large campaign launched by the Athenian Empire against the city-state of Syracuse in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. The expedition was proposed by Alcibiades, a prominent Athenian politician and general, as a strategy to expand Athenian power westward. The Athenian military force was made up of some 30,000 soldiers and over 100 warships.

Despite some initial successes, however, the expedition soon stalled. Few Sicilian city-states joined the Athenians, and the Athenians put in charge of the expedition were not up to the task—Alcibiades himself was called back before the fleet reached Sicily and went into exile. In 413, the expedition ended in disaster: The Athenian army was largely destroyed, and many of the survivors were taken prisoner or sold into slavery. The Athenian Empire did recover some of its power in the decade that followed, but the failure of the Sicilian Expedition, combined with internal political turmoil, weakened them considerably. In 404 BCE, the Spartans decisively defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War.

Many scholars today interpret the play within this historical context. In 414 BCE, when it was first produced, hopes were still running high in Athens.