# Τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι tοῖς ἔργοις



## Alexander2

Diodorus Siculus, _Library of History,_ book 2, chapter 8, section 1: “Πρὸς δὲ τὴν ὀξύτητα τῆς τούτων οἰκοδομίας ἑκάστῳ τῶν φίλων στάδιον διεμέτρησε, δοῦσα τὴν ἱκανὴν εἰς τοῦτο χορηγίαν καὶ διακελευσαμένη *τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις* ἐν ἐνιαυτῷ.”

Loeb Classical Library, C. H. Oldfather’s translation, volume 1: “In order to expedite the building of these constructions she apportioned a stade to each of her friends, furnishing sufficient material for their task and directing them *to complete their work* within a year.”

Does anyone know whether the phrase "τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις" literally means “*to put an end to their work*” or “*to put an end on their work*”?

Is the word "τέλος" in the accusative case, and the words "τοῖς ἔργοις" in the dative, so that the literal rendering is “to put an end to their work”?


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## ioanell

Alexander2 said:


> Is the word "τέλος" in the accusative case, and the words "τοῖς ἔργοις" in the dative, so that the literal rendering is “to put an end to their work”?


Yes, you are right in everything you're asking!


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## Alexander2

Thank you. I can conclude that the most literal rendering of the phrase “τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις” is “to put an end *to* their work” rather than “to put an end *on* their work,” because the preposition “to” implies the dative case, whereas the preposition “on” implies the accusative.


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## ioanell

Alexander2 said:


> I can conclude that the most literal rendering of the phrase “τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις” is “to put an end *to* their work” rather than “to put an end *on* their work,” because the preposition “to” implies the dative case, whereas the preposition “on” implies the accusative.


It seems that I haven’t ever come across the phrase “to put an end on…” and, undoubtedly, I ‘d use the phrase “to put an end to…”. Anyway, I don’t think that for an English translation of an AG text it is a “safe” conclusion to correspond Ancient Greek grammatical cases to English prepositions, because simply this does not always apply; in your example above the dative “τοῖς ἔργοις” is translated with the English preposition *to*, because it renders an indirect object, but there are many other circumstances where the dative case is used differently, such as an adverbial qualifier (e.g. ἡ ψυχή *μαθήμασι* τρέφεται=the soul is fed *with* *learning*) or an object (e.g. Δεινόν ἐστι μάχεσθαι *θεῷ *καὶ *τύχῃ*=It is terrible to fight *against* the *god* and *luck*) or a personal dative (e.g. Πᾶς ἀνὴρ *ἑαυτῷ* πονεῖ=Everyone strives *for himself*) and the translation of the dative is made with a number of different (English) prepositions and according to the context. The same, more or less, applies to the other English preposition *on*, which does not always imply an accusative.


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## Alexander2

Yes, I understand that it is impossible to have full equivalence in wording because syntax and grammar differ between various languages. The goal is simply to transmit the main meaning, and I often see how English translations differ from texts in some other languages, both modern and ancient.


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## sotos

Possibly "on" or "upon" would be a correct literal translation of *επι*-θείναι, and ef-fect would be the proper english verb.


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## Αγγελος

In any case, the meaning is not that they should _stop_ working after one year, but that they should _finish (=complete) _the work within a year. I think that "put an end to" conveys the former rather than the latter meaning in English and is therefore unsuitable as a translation.
Also, I don't think that "put an end _on _the work" is idiomatic in English.


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## Alexander2

Thank you. I can see that the phrase “put an end to” carries the connotation of terminating something prematurely, so that the verb “finish” or “complete” in the English language fits better in this instance than the literal rendering of the Greek expression.


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## ioanell

Alexander2 said:


> Does anyone know whether the phrase "τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις" literally means “*to put an end to their work*” or “*to put an end on their work*”?





Alexander2 said:


> I can conclude that the most literal rendering of the phrase “τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις” is “to put an end *to* their work” rather than “to put an end *on* their work,”





Alexander2 said:


> I can see that the phrase “put an end to” carries the connotation of terminating something prematurely, so that the verb “finish” or “complete” in the English language fits better


With the aim of correcting possible misunderstandings: 1. We all agree that the meaning of the excerpt is that they should [<due to _διακελευσαμένη_] complete their works within a year [_ἐν ἐνιαυτῷ_]”. 2. Alexander didn’t ask which translation between “to complete their works” and “to put an end to/on their works” to choose, he just wanted to know whether the Ancient Greek phrase "τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις" literally means “to put an end to their works” or “to put an end on their works”. 3. I just agreed with Alexander’s initial conclusion that the AG phrase "_τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις_" literally means “to put an end to [their] works”, without suggesting this translation should be used in his excerpt (given also the good translation by C. H. Oldfather), and expressed my ignorance of an English expression “_to put an end *on *_[_their works_]; by the way, if this is an existing expression, I’d be grateful if a relevant reference to a dictionary or a thesaurus were made. 4. It is more than obvious (even to relatively ignorants) that Diodorus Siculus used this phrase with the meaning of the friends “_completing their works_”, as something very desirable, and not of “_terminating them prematurely_”, given that the AG expression *τέλος ἐπιτιθέναι* _ + dative_ has the meaning = _bring to an end__, put an end to__, put the finishing touch to_ as well as the meaning “_ολοκληρώνω, υλοποιώ, πραγματώνω = bring to fulfillment, carry into effect_”; see Iliad.19.107 ‘ψευστήσεις, οὐδ᾽αὖτε τέλος μύθῳ ἐπιθήσεις. ‘Thou wilt be a liar, and not bring thy word to fulfillment’.


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## Alexander2

> 2. Alexander didn’t ask which translation between “to complete their works” and “to put an end to/on their works” to choose, he just wanted to know whether the Ancient Greek phrase "τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις" literally means “to put an end to their works” or “to put an end on their works”. 3. I just agreed with Alexander’s initial conclusion that the AG phrase "τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις" literally means “to put an end to [their] works”, without suggesting this translation should be used in his excerpt


Yes, my purpose was to ascertain which translation is the most literal, whereas I am well aware that the less literal one sounds better in the English language.



> and expressed my ignorance of an English expression “to put an end on [their works]; by the way, if this is an existing expression, I’d be grateful if a relevant reference to a dictionary or a thesaurus were made.


I do not recall ever seeing the expression “to put an end *on*” used in the English language. But I wanted to know whether this is the most literal rendering of the Greek phrase “τέλος *ἐπι*θεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις,” because it includes the prefix *ἐπι- (“on; upon; over”)*.

I guess that if the preposition "*on*" is used in the English translation, the the grammatical case becomes accusative ("to put an end on their works"), whereas if "*to*" is used, the case is dative ("to put an end to their works"). In the Greek text, the case is dative: "τέλος ἐπιθεῖναι *τοῖς ἔργοις."*


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## ioanell

Alexander2 said:


> I wanted to know whether this is the most literal rendering of the Greek phrase “τέλος *ἐπι*θεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις,” because it includes the prefix *ἐπι- (“on; upon; over”)*.



In regard with the meaning of *ἐπί*, one the most usual prepositions in the AG language -which IMO seems to have righteously puzzled you a bit-, have in mind that it goes with all three oblique cases, that is genitive, dative and accusative and, although its first meaning is _on, on top, upon_, it has a wide scale of meanings. As a first member of compound verbs it carries -among others - the meaning of _addition._ You can see all the meanings either here Greek Word Study Tool                                                                        or here Αποτελέσματα για: "ἐπί". As for the verb *ἐπιτίθημι* you can see here Greek Word Study Tool



Alexander2 said:


> I guess that if the preposition "*on*" is used in the English translation, the the grammatical case becomes accusative ("to put an end on their works"), whereas if "*to*" is used, the case is dative ("to put an end to their works").



As I commented in #4 above, I believe it’s pointless to correspond English prepositions from an English translation with AG grammatical cases.


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