The MS. “πῶς γὰρ αὖθις αὖ πάλιν
στράτευμ᾽ ἄγοιμι ταὐτόν
” is defensible if we take πῶς ἄγοιμι as dubitative, "How could I possibly lead?" See Appendix on 170. But there is at least a strong probability that the poet used ἄν here, instead of employing the much rarer construction. So far as our MSS. are concerned, the dropping out of ἄν after ἄγοιμι is not much less likely than the change of ἄν into αὖ. Either would have been easy. I prefer “αὖθις ἂν... ἄγοιμι” to “αὖθις αὖ...ἄγοιμ᾽ ἄν”, because ἄν is thus more forcibly placed, and serves also to bring out αὖθις. We have “αὖθις αὖ πάλιν” in Ph. 952, but usually “αὖθις πάλιν” (364: Ph. 127, 342, 1232: Tr. 342: Ai. 305: fr. 444. 3). To Porson's “αὖθις αὖ...ἄγοιμι ταὔτ̓ ἄν” the drawback is the elision. We find “ταὔτ̓” for the plur. “ταὐτά” (O. T. 284, 840 etc.); but tragedy, which preferred “ταὐτόν” to “ταὐτό” (though admitting the latter under metrical necessity, O. T. 734), would hardly have elided the “ο” in that word. Ant. 462 “αὔτ̓” (for “αὐτό”) is solitary in Soph.: L has “αὖτ̓”. ταὐτὸν has been needlessly suspected and altered. “"The same host"” means an army to which the same realms should again send contingents,—not necessarily, of course, an army composed throughout of the same men.
