On the Ephors and other magistrates of Sparta.

1. But before we treat of the powers of the cosmi, it will be necessary to inquire into an office, which is of the greatest importance in the history of the Lacedæmonian constitution. For while the king, the council, and the people preserved upon the whole the same political power and the same executive authority, the office of the ephors was the moving principle by which, in process of time, this most perfect constitution was assailed, and gradually overthrown. From this remark three questions arise; first, what was the original nature of the office of ephor; secondly, what changes did it experience in the lapse of time, and, thirdly, from what causes did these changes originate.

There is an account frequently repeated by ancient writers, that Theopompus, the grandson of Charilaus the Proclid, founded this office in order to limit the authority of the kings. “He handed down “the royal power to his descendants more durable, “because he had diminished it.” If however the ephoralty was an institution of Theopompus, it is difficult to account for the existence of the same office in other Doric states. In Cyrene the ephors punished litigious people and impostors with infamy; the same office existed in the mother-city Thera, which island had been colonized from Laconia long before the time of Theopompus.