Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone

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ἀκταὶ Βοσπόριαι, sc. “εἰσί” (cp. 948 n.). The “Κυάνεαι” are at the point where the coast of the Bosporus joins the western coast of the Euxine. The city Salmydessus stood just S. of the promontory of Thynias, about 60 miles N.W. of the entrance of the Bosporus, near the modern Midjeh. The name Salmydessus was given also to the tract of coast extending S. of the town.—After Θρῃκῶν a cretic has been lost (=-“τον γονάν” in 980). Boeckh supplies it with ἄξενος, which is at least simple and fitting. Cp. Aesch. PV 726 “τραχεῖα πόντου Σαλμυδησσία γνάθος ι ἐχθρόξενος ναύταισι, μητρυιὰ νεῶν”. Schütz, referring to the schol. on 969, “πέλαγος δέ ἐστι δυσχείμερον περὶ Θρᾴκην”, proposes “δύσχιμος” (‘dangerous’), a word used by Aesch. and Eur. , though not by Soph. But the want of a verb is somewhat awkward. Can the missing word be κλῄζεται? (Cp. O. T. 1451 n.: and for the sing., below, 1133.) Ships often grounded on the shallows (“τέναγος”) which stretched from Salmydessus into the Euxine. The Thracians had set up slabs (“στῆλαι”), marking off the coast into allotments for wrecking purposes. Before this was done, there had been much bloodshed between rival wreckers (Xen. Anab. 7.5.13).—The MS. †“ἠδ᾽” cannot be right. A short syll. is required (=the last syll. of “ἔχοντες” in 980). In my first ed. I adopted “ἰδ᾽”, the conjecture of Triclinius. Prof. Tyrrell remarks (Class. Review vol. 11. p. 141) that “ἰδέ” is not elsewhere elided in classical poetry. As “ἠδέ” could be elided, that may be accidental. Still, it should be noted along with the other facts,—that “ἰδέ” occurs nowhere else in tragedy, and that the hiatus after “Βοσπόριαι” must be excused, as in epic verse, by the ictus before caesura (Introd. to Homer p. 194): cp. Il. 14.175 “ἀλειψαμένη, ἰδὲ χαίτας ι πεξαμένη”. On the whole, I now prefer to leave ἠδ᾽, with an obelus. Either “Βοσπόριαι καὶ ὁ” or “Βοσπόριαί θ᾽ ὅ τε” would be possible.