The play opens with Euelpides and Pithataerus in a wild and desolate region, each with a bird in hand. They followed the advice of birds and regret it now that they are lost. The characters speak directly to the audience. They are average citizens escaping the duties and taxes of Athenian life. The men meet Trochilus, slave-bird to Epops, formerly king Teurus, now turned Hoopoe (a bird). They flatter him, telling him they are escaping Athens to be more like him, a free bird devoid of debt and cares, as well as intellectually and physically superior to men. They ask him to direct them to a city that is more pleasant than Athens, not an aristocratic place but a place where food is free and plentiful. Epops suggests several towns but they are not adequate to the men. And so, Pithetaerus comes up with the idea to found a city. The city will be built in the sky, which is the perfect location to control mankind as well as the gods, by controlling the trafficking of sacrificial smoke, thu
