Ephors

Accordingly the ephors gave Anaxibius three triremes and money enough for a thousand mercenaries, and sent him out.

but Anaxibius, inasmuch as the ephors had become friends of his, succeeded in having himself sent out to Abydus as governor.

When the ephors heard these things, they decided that the matter deserved attention.

but realizing that there were others in Lacedaemon from whom Maeandrius would get help by offering them the cups, he went to the ephors and told them it would be best for Sparta if this Samian stranger quit the country, lest he persuade Cleomenes himself or some other Spartan to do evil.

But after his return his enemies brought him before the ephors, saying that he had been bribed not to take Argos when he might have easily taken it.

After being caught in the act of hoarding a sleeve full of silver there in the camp, he was brought before a court and banished from Sparta, and his house was destroyed.

for at Sparta too, in the reign of Theopompus, there are likewise five whom they call ephors, and in Crete ten who are called cosmoi, set up against the kingly power, as the tribunes of the plebs against the consular command.

But why do I commemorate Socrates or Theramenes, men eminent in the renown of virtue and wisdom, when a certain Spartan, whose name has not even been recorded, so despised death that, when he was being led to it, condemned by the ephors, and was of cheerful and glad countenance, and a certain enemy had said to him, "Do you scorn the laws of Lycurgus?

once this office was established in Sparta, in the reign of Theopompus, for a year at a time, and nonetheless prevailed over the kings;

For over these people, who have from the beginning suffered evils so dreadful, but in present emergencies are found so useful, the Ephors have the power to put to death without trial as many as they please, whereas in the other states of Hellas it is a crime against the gods to stain one’s hands with the blood of even the basest of slaves.

Or have you not observed how great are the advantages of the Spartan kings, and how their wives are kept under statutory ward of the ephors, in order that every possible precaution may be taken against the king being born of any but the Heracleidae?

The ephors were at the moment distanced in the pursuit;

After hearing him accurately, the ephors then went away, and having now certain knowledge [of his guilt], were preparing to arrest him in the city.

When he was on the point of expiring in his present situation in the building, on perceiving it, they took him out of the temple while still breathing;

When, however, the ephors changed their minds for some reason or other and, after he had already gone, tried to turn him back from the Isthmus of Corinth, at that point he declined to render further obedience, but went sailing off to the Hellespont.

then, as soon as peace had come, he persuaded his state that the Thracians were injuring the Greek, and, after gaining his point as best he could from the ephors, set sail with the intention of making war upon the Thracians who dwelt beyond the Chersonese and Perinthus.