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EPHOR (Gr. i4opos)

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 678 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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See also:

EPHOR (Gr. i4opos) , the See also:title of the highest magistrates of the See also:ancient Spartan See also:state. It is uncertain when the See also:office was created and what was its See also:original See also:character. That it owed its institution to See also:Lycurgus (See also:Herod. i. 65; cf. Xen. Respub. Lacedaem. viii. 3) is very improbable, and, we may either regard it as an immemorial Dorian institution (with C. O. See also:Muller, H. See also:Gabriel, H. K.

See also:

Stein, Ed. See also:Meyer and others), or accept the tradition that it was founded during the first Messenian See also:War, which necessitated a prolonged See also:absence from See also:Sparta on the See also:part of both See also:kings (See also:Plato, See also:Laws, iii. 692 A; See also:Aristotle, Politics, v. 9. r =p. 1313 a 26; Plut. Cleomenes, io; so G. Dum; G. See also:Gilbert, A. H. J. Greenidge). There is no See also:evidence for the theory that originally the ephors were See also:market inspectors; they seem rather to have had from the outset judicial or See also:police functions.

Gradually they extended their See also:

powers, aided by the See also:jealousy between the royal houses, which made it almost impossible for the two kings to co-operate heartily, and from the 5th to the 3rd See also:century they exercised a growing despotism which Plato justly calls a tyrannis (Laws, 692). Cleomenes III. restored the royal See also:power by murdering four of the ephors and abolishing the office, and though it was revived by Antigonus Doson after the See also:battle of Sellasia, and existed at least down to See also:Hadrian's reign (Sparta Museum See also:Catalogue, Introd. p. ro), it never regained its former power. In See also:historical times the ephors were five in number, the first of them giving his name to the See also:year, like the See also:eponymous See also:archon at See also:Athens. Where opinions were divided the See also:majority prevailed. The ephors were elected annually, originally no doubt by the kings, later by the See also:people; their See also:term of office began with the new See also:moon after the autumnal See also:equinox, and they had an See also:official See also:residence (E4opeZov) in the See also:Agora. Every full See also:citizen was eligible and no See also:property qualification was required. The ephors summoned and presided over meetings of the See also:Gerousia and See also:Apella, and formed the executive See also:committee responsible for carrying out decrees. In their dealings with the kings they represented the supremacy of the people. There was a monthly See also:exchange of oaths, the kings See also:swearing to See also:rule according, to the laws, the ephors undertaking on this See also:condition to maintain the royal authority (Xen. See also:Resp. Laced. 15.

7). They alone might remain seated in a See also:

king's presence, and had power to try and even to imprison a king, who must appear before them at the third See also:summons. Two of them accompanied the See also:army in the See also:field, not interfering with the king's conduct of the See also:campaign, but prepared, if need be, to bring him to trial on his return. The ephors, again, exercised a See also:general guardianship of See also:law and See also:custom and superintended the training of the See also:young. They shared the criminal See also:jurisdiction of the Gerousia and decided See also:civil suits. The See also:administration of See also:taxation, the See also:distribution of See also:booty, and the regulation of the See also:calendar also devolved upon them. They could actually put See also:perioeci to See also:death without trial, if we may believe Isocrates (xii. 181), and were responsible for protecting the state against the See also:helots, against whom they formally declared war on entering office, so as to be able to kill any whom they regarded as dangerous without violating religious scruples. Finally; the ephors were supreme in questions of See also:foreign policy. They enforced, when necessary, the See also:alien acts (%evllXavia), negotiated with foreign ambassadors, instructed generals, sent out expeditions and were the guiding See also:spirits of the Spartan confederacy. See the constitutional histories of G. Gilbert (Eng. trans.), pp.

16, 52-59; G. Busolt, p. 84 if., V. Thumser, p. 241 IT., G. F. See also:

Schomann (Eng. trans.), p. 236 if., A. H. J. Greenidge, p. 102 ff.; Szanto's See also:article " Ephoroi " in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, v.

286o ff. ; Ed. Meyer, Forschungen zur See also:

alten Geschichte, i. 244 ff.; C. 0. Muller, See also:Dorians, bk. iii. ch. vii. ; G. See also:Grote, See also:History of See also:Greece, pt. ii. ch. vi.; G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, i.' 555 ff.; B. Niese, Historische Zeitschrift, Ixii. 58 if. Of the many monographs dealing with this subject the following are specially useful: G.

Dum, Entstehung and Entwicklung See also:

des spartan. Ephorats (See also:Innsbruck, 1878) ; H. K. Stein, Das Spartan. Ephorat bis auf Cheilon (See also:Paderborn, 1870) ; K. Kuchtner, Entstehung and urspriingliche Bedeutung des spartan. Ephorats (See also:Munich, 1897); C. Frick, De ephoris Spartanis (See also:Gottingen, 1872) ; A. Schaefer, De ephoris Lacedaemoniis (Greifswald, 1863) ; E. von Stern, Zur Entstehung and ursprunglichen Bedeutung des Ephorats in Sparta (See also:Berlin, 1894). (M. N.

End of Article: EPHOR (Gr. i4opos)

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EPHORUS (c. 400–330 B.C.)

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