Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Ajax

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[Αἴαντος, ὅτ᾽ ἦν, τότε φωνῶ.] Either this verse is spurious (as is now generally thought), or else both it and verse 1416 are corrupt. If v. 1416 is a paroemiac, it cannot be followed by a paroemiac. If, then, v. 1417 is to be retained, v. 1416 must be made into an anapaestic dimeter. Further, v. 1417, as it stands, yields no satisfactory sense. It must be taken in one of two ways: (1) by itself, a colon or stop being placed after “θνητῶν”:—‘I speak of Ajax, in the days when he lived’: for the genitive, cp. 1236. Or (2) in connexion with v. 1416, a colon being placed after “Αἴαντος”, but no point after “θνητῶν”:—‘and never yet (having toiled) for a worthier man than Ajax;—I speak of the time when he lived.’ (Cp. Meleager epigr. 22 “ἦν καλὸς Ἡράκλειτος, ὅτ᾽ ἦν ποτε”.) The interpolation of v. 1417 may have been prompted by the comparative “λῴονι”, and by a wish to find the name of the hero at the close of the play. No emendation yet proposed is probable: see Appendix.