[610] Thucyd. iv. 68. τῆς πολιτείας τὸ κρυπτόν: compare iv. 74; also, his remarkable expression about so distinguished a man as Brasidas, ἦν δὲ οὐκ αδύνατος, ὡς Λακεδαιμόνιος, εἰπεῖν, and iv. 24, about the Lacedæmonian envoys to Athens. Compare Schömann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. Græc. iv. 1, 10, p. 122. Aristotel. Polit. ii. 8, 3.
[611] Τὴν μικρὰν καλουμένην ἐκκλησίαν (Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3, 8), which means the γέροντες, or senate, and none besides, except the ephors, who convoked it. (See Lachmann, Spart. Verfass. sect. 12, p. 216.) What is still more to be noted, is the expression οἱ ἔκκλητοι as the equivalent of ἡ ἐκκλησία (compare Hellen. v. 2, 11; vi. 3, 3), evidently showing a special and limited number of persons convened: see, also, ii. 4, 38; iv. 6, 3; v. 2, 33; Thucyd. v. 77.
The expression οἱ ἔκκλητοι could never have got into use as an equivalent for the Athenian ecclesia.
[612] Xenoph. Republ. Laced. 10; Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 17; iii. 1, 7; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 23, p. 489; Isokratês, Or. xii. (Panathenaic.) p. 266. The language of Demosthenês seems particularly inaccurate.
Plutarch (Agesilaus, c. 32), on occasion of some suspected conspirators, who were put to death by Agesilaus and the ephors, when Sparta was in imminent danger from the attack of Epameinondas, asserts, that this was the first time that any Spartan had ever been put to death without trial.
[613] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 18. Compare, also, Thucydid. i. 131, about the guilty Pausanias,—πιστεύων χρήμασι διαλύσειν τὴν διαβολήν; Herodot. v. 72; Thucyd. v. 16,—about the kings Leotychides and Pleistoanax; the brave and able Gylippus,—Plutarch, Lysand. c. 16.
[614] The ephors are sometimes considered as a democratical element, because every Spartan citizen had a chance of becoming ephor; sometimes as a despotical element, because in the exercise of their power they were subject to little restraint and no responsibility: see Plato, Legg. iv. p. 712; Aristot. Polit. ii. 3, 10; iv. 7, 4, 5.
[615] A specimen of the way in which this antiquity was lauded, may be seen in Isokratês, Or. xii. (Panathenaic.) p. 288.
[616] Herodot. v. 68; Stephan. Byz. Ὑλλέες and Δυμᾶν; O. Müller, Dorians, iii. 5, 2; Boeckh ad Corp. Inscrip. No. 1123.
Thucyd. i. 24, about Phalius, the Herakleid, at Corinth.