Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra

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τελοῦντες κ.τ.λ., ‘finishing the sixth and now (entering upon) the seventh round.’ The more general sense of “τελοῦντ<*>ες” (‘doing’) is evolved from the special; cp. on “κρύψον” in 436.—Nauck finds the reading suspicious, ‘since “πῶλος” is almost always fem.’ It often is so (705 n.); but often, too, masc.: e.g. Aesch. Ag. 1641（“κριθῶντα πῶλον”), Aesch. Ch. 749, Xen. Eq. 1. 1.

The Aenian, closely followed by the others, had just completed his sixth “δίαυλος”, or double course, in the hippodrome: i.e., he had just passed, for the sixth time, round the goal nearest to the starting-place, and was on the point of beginning his seventh course. Just as he was passing the goal, his horses bolted. Hence he could not work them quite round into the track. They turned out of the left-ward curve (“ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς”), and ran straight on. Meanwhile, one of the two Libyan chariots had swept round the goal in a wider circle, on the Aenian's right. The Aenian's horses dashed head-foremost into the Libyan's team, striking it on the left side.

In the four - horse chariot - race at Olympia the number of double courses was twelve. Hence the goal farthest from the starting-place is “δωδεκάγναμπτον... τέρμα δρόμου” | “ἵππων” ( Pind. O. 3. 33: cp. Pind. O. 2. 55, Pind. O. 6. 75, Pind. P. 5. 33). If the “ἱππικὸν” (=4 stadia) be taken as the length of one double course in the hippodrome, twelve such courses give about 51/2 English miles. (Cp. art. Hippodromus in Smith's Dict. Ant., 3rd ed., p. 965 a.）

Βαρκαίοις ὄχοις: cp. 702 n.: for the pl. (like the Homeric “ὄχεα”), meaning one chariot, cp. fr. 611 “ὄχοις Ἀκεσταίοισιν ἐμβεβὼς πόδα”.