Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae

911 The MS. text, καὶ τὰς ἄπαιδας ἐς τὸ λοιπὸν οὐσίας, is undoubtedly corrupt. Various attempts to explain or to amend it are recorded in the Appendix.

The genuine verse must have had some direct reference to the context. She is weeping at the sight of attached servants whom she is about to leave. The general sense ought to be, ‘bewailing her own fate, and that of the household over which a change was impending’; since, when master and mistress were dead, the household would be dissolved, and the faithful slaves would pass into other hands. After the death of Heracles, Ceÿx, the king of Trachis (40 n.), was deterred by Eurystheus from continuing to protect the Heracleidae; who sought refuge at Athens. ( Apollod.2. 8. 1.）

I believe that “ΑΠΑΙΔΑΣ” arose from “ΕΠΑΛΛΟΙΣ” when the E had been accidentally lost or obscured. A similar interchange of initial “α” and “ε”, combined with fusion of two words into one, occurs in O. C.550, where “ἐφ᾽ ἁστάλη” was corrupted into “ἀπεστάλη”. I would read, καὶ τῆς ἐπ᾽ ἄλλοις ἐς τὸ λοιπὸν οὐσίας: ‘and the fate of the property which would thenceforth be in the power of others.’ For “ἐπί” with dat. as=penes, cp. O. C.66, Ph.1003.The slaves are part of the “οὐσία”. Euripides has “οὐσία”, as=‘property,’ at least twice: H. F.337“πατρῷον ἐς μέλαθρον, οὗ τῆς οὐσίας” | “ἄλλοι κρατοῦσι”: Helen. 1253 “ὡς ἂν παρούσης οὐσίας ἕκαστος ᾖ”. (See Appendix.) ἑστίας would be an easy correction of “οὐσίας”: but, on my view of the passage, the change is not required.