EPH'ORI (Lat., from Gk. gOopot, ephoroi, overseers, from epi, upon + *Iv, !loran, to look). An order of magistrates at Sparta. He rodotus attributes their creation to Lycu•gus, and Aristotle to King Theopompus, while it seems clear that the Alexandrian chronologists had a list which extended back to about B.C. 757. As they appear in Spartan colonies of Thera and probably Tarentum, they must have early become an established part of the Spartan Government. It is clear that they gradually took into their hands the real power, while the share of the kings in the government was lessened. Their name seems to in dicate that they were originally appointed to see that the discipline of the State was observed, which in Sparta implied nearly universal power. The ephori were five in number; they were elected annually by and from all Spartans, and the decision of a majority was binding on the board. During the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. the ephori are the governing body at Sparta; they convoke the Council of Elders and the Assembly, receive ambassadors, determine the mobilization of the army, and during the war are kept in fo•med of affairs in the field by secret dispatches, while two of the board always accompany the King in his campaigns. As presidents of the
Council of Elders they could bring even the kings to trial, and it is clear that their almost unlim ited power during their short term caused much dissatisfaction to the more independent kings. The revolution of Cleomenes III. temporarily destroyed their power, and though after his over throw in B.C. 221 the old forms were nominally restored, the ephori do not seem to have become again the ruling body. Even in Roman times the old name was retained by a board of five magis trates at Sparta, but we are not informed as to their duties. Consult : Dum, Dic Entstehung vnd Entwickelung des spartanischen Ephorais (Inns bruck, 1878) ; Meyer, Forsehungen zur alter Ge schichte (Halle, 1892) ; and the Greek histories of Grote, Holm, Busolt, and E. Meyer.