I can’t work out why τὰς ἀρχὰς ἔξω οὔσας ἀφανεῖς, is in the accusative. I would have expected a genitive absolute here.
προκαθέντες ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ εἰς τὴν βαλανοδόκην λίνου λεπτοῦ καὶ ἰσχυροῦ βρόχον καὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς ἔξω οὔσας ἀφανεῖς, ὡς ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ἐνεβλήθη ἡ βάλανος, ἀνέσπασαν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς τοῦ λίνου τὸν βρόχον καὶ τὴν βάλανον, λαβόντες δὲ τὰ μέτρα αὐτῆς πάλιν καθῆκαν.http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0667:chapter=XVI&highlight=balanodo%2Fkhn
And this is my translation:
Placing in advance during the day into the bolt-dock a noose of thin and strong linen with as well the ends though outside not visible and when at night the bolt was entered they pulled up the noose and the bolt by means of the ends of the linen and then having taken the measurements of it placed it back down again.
Is there a major obstacle to our seeing τὰς ἀρχὰς as object to προκαθέντες just as surely as the βρόχον of which the ἀρχὰς are presumably a part? You’ve apparently had no objection to taking things this way in your translation.
Thanks I see that now. I can see why I gave the impression that I was taking the ends to be an accusative of the verb in the translation but that was due simply to me wording the translation badly. Even though I can see you are correct it still feels wrong. I shall stare at the sentence until it starts to feel right.
Having stared at it for some time there is still a bit of a problem for me. It is that only the noose is lowered down while the ends stay put. If that were not so the ends would not be accessible when night came. Or perhaps προκαθίημι sometimes means something like ‘put in place beforehand’ rather than 'let down beforehand, ’ which is what I get when I look it up in Diogenes?