ξίφεσιν, poet. plur.: cp. Pind. P. 4. 242 “Φρίξου μάχαιραι”: Eur. Ion 192“ἅρπαις” (the scimitar of Perseus). The dat. “ξίφεσιν”, following “χερί”, defines the instrument used (slain by the hand with the sword): cp. 310 “ὄνυξι συλλαβὼν χερί”. Eur. Helen. 373 “ὄνυχι..γένυν ι ἔδευσε φοινίαισι πλαγαῖς”. ἱππονώμας, ‘guiding horses,’ refers to riding in both the other places where it occurs ( Eur. Hipp. 1399, of Hippolytus; Nub. 571, of Poseidon Hippius). Here, βοτῆρας, closely following βοτά, must mean the herdsmen who tended the sheep and oxen (=“ποιμνίων ἐπιστάταις”, 27). It would be forced, then, to suppose that “ἱππονώμας” means ‘tending horses,’—with ref. to the horses of the Greeks on the “λειμὼν ἱππομανής” (143 f.). That would be as if one said, ‘the cattle, and their herdsmen, who also tended horses.’ Herdsmen in charge of great flocks and herds, on a wide plain, and near a watchful foe, might well be mounted. It is no objection— and least of all, in an Attic tragedy— that the Homeric warrior does not ride. —The reading “ἱππονώμας”, instead of ἱππονόμους (‘horse-feeding’), is made certain by metre (v. 245), and is confirmed by the first hand in L (cr. n.).
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VII: The Ajax. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1907.
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