Now that said, I can't contradict statistics if I had not gathered them. I see from the website that you linked to that the article being quoted from is statistics from the American Philological Association. While I would not be surprised to learn that there is a correlation between hiring patterns of professors in mathematics versus other humanities (classical studies, in this case), they could well be very different. After all, funding for PhD students in mathematics is, I am told, very different from that in other fields. So I would take the stats with a grain of salt.

I would also not be surprised if there were some difference depending on what type of institution you are applying to. A top flight research school may be looking for younger candidates, for similar reasons that the Fields Medal is only given to young mathematicians. But there are many more positions at schools that are less research oriented, and at non-PhD-granting institutions. They may be less concerned about age. I don't really know.

In any case, even if the stats do show age discrimination, I have learned in life not to let such obstacles deter me too much. It does not pay me to lose sleep over these sorts of things while I need to concentrate on writing a dissertation. I'll worry about landing a position when I finish my degree. And a good set of letters of reference from respected researchers will probably more than offset the age drawback when it comes to the job search overall.