Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone

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The MS. παντογήρως is unquestionably corrupt. Sleep, the renewer of vigour, could not be described as ‘bringing old age to all.’ Nor can the epithet be explained as ‘enfeebling all,’ in the sense of ‘subduing them’; nor, again, as ‘attending on all, even to old age.’ The neighbourhood of “ἀγήρως” is not in favour of “παντογήρως”, but against it; in the case of “παντοπόρος—ἄπορος” (360), and of “ὑψίπολις—ἄπολις” (370), there is a direct contrast between the two words. Either “πάντ᾽ ἀγρῶν” or “πανταγρεὺς” (see cr. n.) would be good, if “οὔτ᾽” could be taken from the next verse, and added to this. But “οὔτ᾽” clearly belongs, I think, to the next verse,—as will be seen presently. Bamberger proposed παντοθήρας, or παντόθηρος. The former would be a subst. like “ἰχθυοθήρας”, ‘fisherman,’ “ὀρνιθοθήρας”, ‘fowler’: the latter (which I should prefer), an adj. like “πολύθηρος”, ‘catching much’ (Heliodorus 5. 18), “εὔθηρος”, ‘having good sport.’ “παντόθηρος” would suit the sense well. But its probability depends on the way in which we conceive the corrupt “παντογήρως” to have arisen. It is evident that the genuine “ἀγήρως” in the next line had something to do with it. It seems most likely that the eye of the transcriber who first wrote “παντογήρως” had wandered to “ἀγήρως”, and that by a mere inadvertence he gave a like ending to the earlier word. Now this might most easily have happened if the sixth letter of the earlier series had been “Γ”, but would obviously have been less likely if that letter had been “Θ”. I therefore think it more probable that “παντογήρως” arose from πάντ᾽ ἀγρεύων than from “παντόθηρος”. It is immaterial that the last four letters of the latter are nearer to the MS., since, on the view just stated, the transcriber's error arose from the fact that the consecutive letters “ἀγ” were common to “ἀγρεύων” and “ἀγήρως”, and that, from these letters onwards, he accidentally copied “ἀγήρως”. It may be added that such an error would have been easier with a separate word like “ἀγρεύων” than with the second part of a compound like “παντόθηρος”.—The verb “ἀγρεύω”, ‘to catch’ (common both in verse and in prose) is used by Soph. in fr. 507.— Soph. was thinking of Il. 14.244 ff. (“Ὕπνος” speaking to Hera), “ἄλλον μέν κεν ἔγωγε θεῶν αἰειγενετάων ι ῥεῖα κατευνήσαιμι... ι Ζηνὸς δ᾽ οὐκ ἂν ἔγωγε Κρονίονος ἆσσον ἱκοίμην, ι οὐδὲ κατευνήσαιμ᾽, ὅτε μὴ αὐτός γε κελεύοι”.