The Birds is a comedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was first performed in 414 BCE at the City Dionysia festival, where it won second prize. The story follows Pisthetaerus, a middle-aged Athenian who persuades the world's birds to create a new city in the sky (thereby gaining control over all communications between men and gods), and is himself eventually miraculously transformed into a bird-like god figure himself, and replaces Zeus as the pre-eminent power in the cosmos.