θανόντοιν is clearly required here, though our MSS. have “θανόντων”. So in El. 1297, where “νῷν ἐπελθόντοιν” is certainly right, L has “ἐπελθόντων” (with “οι” written over “ω” as a correction). A plur. noun can stand with “δύο” (Od. 12.73), and in Il. 16.428 we have “αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες ...κλάζοντε”. But I have been able to find only one proper parallel for such a combination as “δυοῖν ἀδελφοῖν θανόντων”, viz., a verse of an unknown poet, fr. adesp. 153 in Nauck Trag. Frag. p. 679 “Αἴαντε δ᾽ ὁρμήσαντες ἐκ συνωρίδος”: and this has survived because Herodian cited it as a solecism (Anecd. Boiss. 3. 244): “ἔδει γὰρ ἐπενεχθῆναι δυϊκῷ δυϊκόν”. In that verse, too, the license had an obvious metrical motive, which did not exist here. Cp. 55 f. “ἀδελφὼ δύο...αὐτοκτονοῦντε;” 58 “λελειμμένα”; 62 “μαχουμένα”. διπλῇ χερί, i.e. each by the other's right hand (as in O. C. 1425 “θάνατον ἐξ ἀμφοῖν ῀ἐξ ἀλλήλοιν”): so 170 “διπλῆς μοίρας”, a doom given by each to the other. Cp. El. 206 “θανάτους...διδύμαιν χειροῖν”, a murder done by two right hands (that of Clytaemnestra and that of Aegisthus). Distinguish the use of the plur. “διπλοῖ” for “δύο”, as 51, 1233.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part III: The Antigone. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1900.
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