Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra

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πολλῶν ἂν ἥκοις. Clyt. refers to Electra's words, “πεπαύμεθ᾽ ἡμεῖς”: ‘If you have indeed silenced her, then you would deserve much,’ etc. A protasis formed by “εἰ” and a past tense of the indic. is sometimes thus combined with an apodosis formed by the optat. and “ἄν”. In such cases the past tense usu. denotes an actual fact, or what is assumed to be such. Thus O. C. 974 ff. “εἰ δ̓..ἦλθον,.. πῶς ἂν..ψέγοις”; Thuc. 3. 40“εἰ γὰρ οὗτοι ὀρθῶς ἀπέστησαν” (granting that they were right), “ὑμεῖς ἂν οὐ χρεὼν ἄρχοιτε”. More rarely, the protasis expresses a condition recognised as unreal; e.g. Hom. Od. 1. 236“ἐπεὶ οὔ κε θανόντι περ ὧδ᾽ ἀκαχοίμην”, | “εἰ μετὰ οἷς ἑτάροισι δάμη κ.τ.λ.”— Wunder's change of ἔπαυσας to παύσαις is not (I now think) desirable.

πολλῶν goes with ἄξιος, and τυχεῖν is epexegetic: cp. Ant. 699“οὐχ ἥδε χρυσῆς ἀξία τιμῆς λαχεῖν”;