Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone

ἐπαλλήλοιν χεροῖν, ‘with mutual hands,’—each brother lifting his hands against the other. It is hard to believe that Soph. would here have written ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοιν, ‘against each other,’ when χεροῖν would seem a weak addition, and the double οιν would be brought into harsh relief by the independence of the two words. The verse is in every way better if we can read ἐπαλλήλοιν as an epithet of χεροῖν. Now we know that the word “ἐπάλληλος” was in common use at least as early as the 2nd century B.C. In the extant literature it seems always to correspond with “ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοις” as=‘one on top of another’ ( Od. 23.47 “κείατ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοισι”), being used to mean, ‘in close order’ or ‘in rapid sequence’ (as Polyb. 11. 11 “ἐν ἐπαλλήλοις τάξεσι”, in close ranks: Alciphro Epp. 3. 6 “τὰς ἐπαλλήλους πληγάς”, the showers of blows). An exception might, indeed, be supposed in Philo Judaeus De Mose 3, p. 692, where he is saying that the continuity of human record has been broken “διὰ τὰς ἐν ὕδασι καὶ πυρὶ γενομένας συνεχεῖς καὶ ἐπαλλήλους φθοράς”: which Adrian Turnebus rendered, “propter illas eluvionum et exustionum continuas et alternas (‘mutual’) interneciones.” But Philo was evidently (I think) using “ἐπάλληλος” in its ordinary sense, and meant merely, ‘owing to the continuous and rapid succession of calamities by flood and fire.’ It by no means follows, however, that a poet of the 5th cent. B.C. could not have used “ἐπάλληλος” in a sense corresponding with “ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοις” as= ‘against each other,’—the more frequent and familiar sense of the words, as in the Homeric “ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοισιν ἰόντες, ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοισι φέρον πολύδακρυν Ἄρηα” (Il. 3.132): cp. Aristoph. Lys. 50 “ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοισιν αἴρεσθαι δόρυ”. The use of “ἐπάλληλος” here may have been partly prompted by a reminiscence of Aesch. Theb. 931 “ἐτελεύͅτασαν ὑπ᾽ ἀλλαλοφόνοις χερσὶν ὁμοσπόροισιν” (cp. Xen. Hier. 3. 8“ἀδελφοὺς... ἀλληλοφόνους”).