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. Where opinions were divided the majority prevailed. 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 (ἐφορεῖον) in the Agora. Every full citizen was eligible and no property qualification was required.
The ephors summoned and presided over meetings of the Gerousia and Apella, and formed the executive committee responsible for carrying out decrees. In their dealings with the kings they represented the supremacy of the people. There was a monthly exchange of oaths, the kings swearing to rule according to the laws, the ephors undertaking on this condition to maintain the royal authority (Xen. Resp. Laced. 15. 7). They alone might remain seated in a king’s presence, and had power to try and even to imprison a king, who must appear before them at the third summons. Two of them accompanied the army in the field, not interfering with the king’s conduct of the campaign, but prepared, if need be, to bring him to trial on his return. The ephors, again, exercised a general guardianship of law and custom and superintended the training of the young. They shared the criminal jurisdiction of the Gerousia and decided civil suits. The administration of taxation, the distribution of booty, and the regulation of the calendar also devolved upon them. They could actually put perioeci to death without trial, if we may believe Isocrates (xii. 181), and were responsible for protecting the state against the 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 foreign policy. They enforced, when necessary, the alien acts (ξενηλασία), negotiated with foreign ambassadors, instructed generals, sent out expeditions and were the guiding spirits of the Spartan confederacy.
See the constitutional histories of G. Gilbert (Eng. trans.), pp. 16, 52-59; G. Busolt, p. 84 ff., V. Thumser, p. 241 ff., G.F. Schömann (Eng. trans.), p. 236 ff., A.H.J. Greenidge, p. 102 ff.; Szanto’s article “Ephoroi” in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, v. 2860 ff.; Ed. Meyer, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, i. 244 ff.; C.O. Müller, Dorians, bk. iii. ch. vii.; G. Grote, History of Greece, pt. ii. ch. vi.; G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, i.² 555 ff.; B. Niese, Historische Zeitschrift, lxii. 58 ff. Of the many monographs dealing with this subject the following are specially useful: G. Dum, Entstehung und Entwicklung des spartan. Ephorats (Innsbruck, 1878); H.K. Stein, Das spartan. Ephorat bis auf Cheilon (Paderborn, 1870); K. Kuchtner, Entstehung und ursprüngliche Bedeutung des spartan. Ephorats (Munich, 1897); C. Frick, De ephoris Spartanis (Göttingen, 1872); A. Schaefer, De ephoris Lacedaemoniis (Greifswald, 1863); E. von Stern, Zur Entstehung und ursprünglichen Bedeutung des Ephorats in Sparta (Berlin, 1894).
(M. N. T.)
EPHORUS (c. 400-330 B.C.), of Cyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, Greek historian. Together with the historian Theopompus he was a pupil of Isocrates, in whose school he attended two courses of rhetoric. But he does not seem to have made much progress in the art, and it is said to have been at the suggestion of Isocrates himself that he took up literary composition and the study of history. The fruit of his labours was his Ἱστορίαι in 29 books, the first universal history, beginning with the return of the Heraclidae to Peloponnesus, as the first well-attested historical event. The whole work was edited by his son Demophilus, who added a 30th book, containing a summary description of the Social War and ending with the taking of Perinthus (340) by Philip of Macedon (cf. Diod. Sic. xvi. 14 with xvi. 76). Each book was complete in itself, and had a separate title and preface. It is clear that Ephorus made critical use of the best authorities, and his work, highly praised and much read, was freely drawn upon by Diodorus Siculus[1] and other compilers. Strabo (viii. p. 332) attaches much importance to his geographical investigations, and praises him for being the first to separate the historical from the merely geographical element. Polybius (xii. 25 g) while crediting him with a knowledge of the conditions of naval warfare, ridicules his description of the battles of Leuctra and Mantineia as showing ignorance of the nature of land operations. He was further to be commended for drawing (though not always) a sharp line of demarcation between the mythical and historical (Strabo ix. p. 423); he even recognized that a profusion of detail, though lending corroborative force to accounts of recent events, is ground for suspicion in reports of far-distant history. His style was high-flown and artificial, as was natural considering his early training, and he frequently sacrificed truth to rhetoric effect; but, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he and Theopompus were the only historical writers whose language was accurate and finished. Other works attributed to him were:—A Treatise on Discoveries; Respecting Good and Evil Things; On Remarkable Things in Various Countries (it is doubtful whether these were separate works, or merely extracts from the Histories); A Treatise on my Country, on the history and antiquities of Cyme, and an essay On Style, his only rhetorical work, which is occasionally mentioned by the rhetorician Theon. Nothing is known of his life, except the statement in Plutarch that he declined to visit the court of Alexander the Great.
Fragments in C.W. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, i., with critical introduction on the life and writings of Ephorus; see J.A. Klügmann, De Ephoro historico (1860); C.A. Volquardsen, Untersuchungen über die Quellen der griechischen und sicilischen Geschichten bei Diodor. xi.-xvi. (1868); and specially J.B. Bury, Ancient Greek Historians (1909); E. Schwartz, in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyc. s.v.; and article [Greece]: History: Ancient Authorities.
[1] It is now generally recognized, thanks to Volquardsen and others, that Ephorus is the principal authority followed by Diodorus, except in the chapters relating to Sicilian history.