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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
It is characteristic of Aristophanes that, in the fifth-century debate on the conflicting moral claims of 
and 
he tended to adopt a conservative stance, and in general to support the claims of 
Most of his plots concern an imbalance.in cosmic order (usually at first perceptible to the hero alone), and the hero's 
(Ach. 128) which is undertaken to correct it. Often the cosmic imbalance is caused by the pre-eminence of those who place their own 
above 
(whether they are generals, politicians, sophists, or tragedians), and the hero's self-imposed task is to reverse this state of affairs.
1 It is of interest that of the forty extant occurrences of 
in Aristophanes, no less than eleven are in Clouds. This ‘sophist-play’, on the other hand, only contains six examples of 
as against no less than sixteen in Birds (whose theme is vitally concerned with the establishment of a new 
2 It is clearly no part of this article to enter in any detail into the 
controversy. The whole matter is best discussed in Heinimann, , Nomos und Physis (Basel, 1945), and related to drama by many scholars after him, notably Dodds, Kitto, and Lloyd-Jones.Google Scholar
3 See Varro, , R, R, 3.12.4Google Scholar; 2.7.8; Cicero, , N.D. 3.22.55Google Scholar; id. Div. 2.70.145Google Scholar. For 
meaning the sexual organs, see Weinreich in Rh.Mus. 77 (1928), 112.Google Scholar
4 
passim and esp. Ach. 729 ff. (Henderson, , op. cit., pp. 131Google Scholar f). 
Av. 1100, Lys. 1004 (Henderson, , op. cit., pp. 134Google Scholar f.). 
cf. Thes. 448Google Scholar (and Ruck, , ‘Euripides' Mother’, in Arion N.S. 2/1, p. 17Google Scholar). 
Lys. 800Google Scholar (Henderson, , op. cit., p. 136).Google Scholar
5 Dover, , The Clouds (Oxford, 1968), p. 227.Google Scholar
6 See LSJ9 s.v.
7 It is however possible to read a bawdy double meaning into 
in Ar. frag. 684, and both 
(Henderson, , op. cit., p. 176Google Scholar) and 
(ibid., p. 175) have bawdy associations. The case is doubtful: but some evidence does exist.