The vocative Ἄργους is an elliptical form of Ἄργους πόλις, a common but potentially confusing contraction in tragedy and comedy where the noun is omitted but the case ending implies it. More critically, the address 'O city of Argos' to the Athenian polis is a deliberate ironic inversion: the Demos (the Athenian people) is being addressed as if they were the citizens of Argos, a traditional rival of Athens and a city often associated in Old Comedy with cowardice or instability. This rhetorical device underscores the speaker's accusation that the Athenian Demos is behaving with the treachery or inconsistency attributed to Argos, while simultaneously questioning their capacity to recognize their own identity in the face of the Sausage-Seller's (or Paphlagon's) manipulations.