ORIGINAL FUNCTIONS OF THE EPIIORS. 351 party to the measure, that their functions were at first com paratively circumscribed, and extended by successive encroach- ments, is also probable ; but they seem to have been from the beginning a board of specially popular origin, in contraposition to the kings and the senate. One proof of this is to be found in the ancient oath, which was every month interchanged between the kings and the ephors ; the king swearing for himself, that lie would exercise his regal functions according to the established laws, the ephors swearing on behalf of the city, that his au- thority should on that condition remain unshaken. 1 This mutual compact, which probably formed a part of the ceremony during the monthly sacrifices offered by the king, 2 continued down to a time when it must have become a pure form, and when the kings had long been subordinate in power to the ephors. But it evi- dently began first as a reality, when the king was predominant and effective chief of the state, and when the ephors, clothed with functions chiefly defensive, served as guai'antees to the people against abuse of the regal authority. Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, 3 all interpret the original institution of the ephors as designed to protect the people and restrain the kings : the latter assimilates them to the tribunes at Rome. Such were the relations which had once subsisted between the kings and the ephors : though in later times these relations had been so completely reversed, that Polybius considers the former as essentially subordinate to the latter, reckoning it as a point of duty in the kings to respect the ephors "as their fathers." 4 And such is decidedly the state of things throughout 1 Xenophon, Republic. Lacedsemon. c. 15. Kal opKove filv d/U,7//loif /j.7/va Koiovvrai' "Epopot JJ.EV vTrep rJjs Tro/leuf, fiaaihevs S 1 virep &O.VTOV. 'O 6e opKOf iaTi, r> fiev f3aai^.Ei, Karli roi)f T>/f irohevf KEtfisvovf v6fiov<; Paaifev- aeiv. ry Se trohei, efnredopKOvvTOf EKE'CVOV, uarvfyeTiiKTOv rr/v ftam^eiav irap- il-eiv. 2 Herodot. vi. 57. 3 Plato, Legg. iii. p. 692; Aristot. Polit. v. 11, 1; Cicero de Republic. Fragm. ii. 33, ed. Maii " Ut contra consulare imperium tribuni plebis, sic illi (ephori) contra vim regiam constituti ;" also, De Lcgg. iii. 7. and Valer. Max. iv. 1 . Compare Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 7 : Tittmann, Griechisch. Staats *rfassung, p. 108, seqq. ' Pr-lyb. xxiv. 8.
