Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone

οὔτε του γενῇδος … οὐ δικέλλης. For the enclitic “του” so placed, cp. 20 n.: for οὔτε … οὐ, O. C. 972 n. “γενηΐς, γενής” (only here), is prop. an adj., an implement with a “γένυς” (jaw), or blade: El. 485 “ἀμφάκης γένυς”, the two-edged blade (of a bronze axe). Hesych. “γενῇδα: ἀξίνην, πέλεκυν” (referring, as the acc. shows, to some other passage): and here the γενῄς is prob. the same as the “ἀξίνη” below (1109), which was to be used in raising the mound (1203). We may render ‘pickaxe,’ since this properly has a blade as well as a point. The γενῄς would break the hard surface. Then the earth would be thrown up (“ἐκβολή”) with the δίκελλα, which was a sort of heavy two-pronged hoe, used, like the Roman ligo or bidens, in hoeing up soil: the “μάκελλα” (“μία, κέλλω” to drive forward) being a like tool with one prong. The “σμινύη” was like the “δίκελλα”, a two-pronged hoe. ‘Mattock’ is the nearest word for it. ‘Spade’ would better suit “ἄμη” (or the Homeric “λίστρον”), though this was prop. rather a shovel. For the combination cp. Shaks. Tit. Andr. 5. 3. 11 “'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade.”

δικ. ἐκβολή, throwing up of earth by mattock (possessive gen. denoting the subject, “γῆ ἣν ἡ δ. ἐκβάλλει”): ἐκβ., abstract for concrete, like “τροφή” for “θρέμμα” (O. T. 1 n.). In Greek “μοδ. ἐκβολάδες” is a mining term, ‘out-put.’— The epithets στύφλος (‘hard,’ cp. 139), and χέρσος ‘dry,’ tell something which the preceding words, and the following ἀρρώξ, would not alone have told; viz. why no foot-prints were traceable.

ἐπημαξευμένη, lit. ‘traversed (i.e. furrowed) by a carriage’ with its (four) wheels, =“τροχοῖς ἁμάξης κεχαραγμένη”: ἐπ-, not ἐφ-, since as Eusth. says (on Il. 18.485) “τὸ...ἅμαξα οἱ μὲν παλαιοὶ ψιλοῦσι, οἱ μέντοι νεώτεροι Ἀττικοὶ ἐδάσυναν”. (Cp. n. on “ἀπήνη”, O. T. 753.)

ἀλλ᾽ ὁ ἐργάτης ἄσημός τις ἦν: for “τις” added to the predicate, where the subject has the art., cp. O. T. 618, Aesch. Theb. 491 “ὁ σηματουργὸς δ᾽ οὔ τις εὐτελὴς ἄπ᾽ ἦν”: Aristoph. Pl. 726 “ὡς φιλόπολίς τίς ἐσθ᾽ ὁ δαίμων καὶ σοφός”. Not: “ὁ ἐργάτης τις” (the doer, whoever he is) “ἄσημος ἦν”, like “ὁ κύριός τις” (O. C. 288 n.).