noun
definition
One of the five annually-elected senior magistrates in various Dorian states, especially in ancient Sparta, where they oversaw the actions of Spartan kings.
definition
(in modern Greece) A superintendent or curator.
Examples of ephors in a Sentence
The war party in Sparta regained its strength under new ephors and negotiations began for an alliance between Sparta, Argos and Boeotia.
Finally, the ephors were supreme in questions of foreign policy.
The restored fugitives selected five "ephors," including Critias, to organize a revolution, while the radicals.
In historical times it numbered twenty-eight members, to whom were added ex officio the two kings and, later, the five ephors.
The highest officer of the confederacy was the general (oTparnyos), who was assisted by a treasurer (raµias), while the chief magistrates of the several communities bore the title of ephors (g 4 opoc).
But Lysander's boundless influence and ambition, and the superhuman honours paid him, roused the jealousy of the kings and the ephors, and, on being accused by the Persian satrap Pharnabazus, he was recalled to Sparta.
The presiding officers were at first the kings, but in historical times the ephors, and the voting was conducted by shouts; if the president was doubtful as to the majority of voices, a division was taken and the votes were counted.
There is no evidence for the theory that originally the ephors were market inspectors; they seem rather to have had from the outset judicial or police functions.
In historical times the ephors were five in number, the first of them giving his name to the year, like the eponymous archon at Athens.
The ephors were elected annually, originally no doubt by the kings, later by the people; their term of office began with the new moon after the autumnal equinox, and they had an official residence (Oop€Iov) in the Agora.
The ephors summoned and presided over meetings of the Gerousia and Apella, and formed the executive committee responsible for carrying out decrees.
The ephors, again, exercised a general guardianship of law and custom and superintended the training of the young.
After twice defeating the forces of the Achaean League in Arcadia, near Mount Lycaeum and at Leuctra,he strengthened his position by assassinating four of the ephors, abolishing the ephorate, which had usurped the supreme power, and banishing some eighty of the leading oligarchs.
The institution was under the supervision of the ephors, who, on entering office, annually proclaimed war against the helots (serf-class) and thus absolved from the guilt of murder any Spartan who should slay a helot.
It was instituted primarily as a precaution against the ever-present danger of a helot revolt, and secondarily perhaps as a training for young Spartans, who were sent out by the ephors to keep watch on the helots and assassinate any who might appear dangerous.
More and more, as time went on, the kings became mere figure-heads, except in their capacity as generals, and the real power was transferred to the ephors and to the gerousia.
The reason for this change lay partly in the fact that the ephors, chosen by popular election from the whole body of citizens, represented a democratic element in the constitution without violating those oligarchical methods which seemed necessary for its satisfactory administration; partly in the weakness of the kingship, the dual character of which inevitably gave rise to jealousy and discord between the two holders of the office, often resulting in a practical deadlock; partly in the loss of prestige suffered by the kingship, especially during the 5th century, owing to these quarrels, to the frequency with which kings ascended the throne as minors and a regency was necessary, and to the many cases in which a king was, rightly or wrongly, suspected of having accepted bribes from the enemies of the state and was condemned and banished.
The same reign saw also an important constitutional change, the substitution of a board of patronomi for the ephors, whose power had become almost despotic, and the curtailment of the functions exercised by the gerousia; these measures were, however, cancelled by Antigonus.
Together with the kings and ephors it formed the supreme executive committee of the state, and it exercised also a considerable criminal and political jurisdiction, including the trial of kings; its competence extended to the infliction of a sentence of exile or even of death.
In later times, too, the actual debate was almost, if not wholly, confined to the kings, elders, ephors and perhaps the other magistrates.
Subsequently appointed by the ephors to settle the political dissensions then rife at Byzantium and to protect the city and the neighbouring Greek colonies from Thracian attacks, he made himself tyrant of Byzantium, and, when declared an outlaw and driven thence by a Spartan force, he fled to Cyrus.