Gluttony is one of the dominant themes that emerge from the imagery. The play's focus on food and drink is evident in the choice of a sausage seller as the protagonist. It is evident also in puns on the names of two characters. The name "Paphlagonian" bears a resemblance with "Paphlazo" (I splutter, boil, fret) and this pun is made explicit in lines 919–22, where Paphlagonian is imagined as a boiling pot that needs to be taken off the fire. In Greek "Demos" bears a resemblance to the Greek word for "fat", a pun that is made explicit in lines 214–16, where Demosthenes compares the task of government to the task of preparing and cooking meat. The connection Demos=fat is consistent with the notion that Agoracritus can refine his master at the end of the play by boiling him (a notion that originates in the myth of Pelias, whose children boil him like an old ram in an attempt to rejuvenate him). Many of the grossest images in the play feature references to cannibalism: Paphlagonian swallows his victims like figs (258–63), Agoracritus is urged to eat Paphlagonian's crest and wattles (496–7), protagonist and antagonist threaten to devour each other (693, 698–701) and Demos devours his own officials (1131–40). Such images present the audience with a nightmarish vision of the world – it is a world where horses and ships talk and act more like human beings than human beings do. The darkness of this vision makes the final vision of a reformed Athens all the brighter by contrast.