of the administration, but assumed the power of imprisoning, deposing, and even putting their kings to death by their own authority. The kings too, in return, sometimes bribed, sometimes deposed or murdered the ephori, and employed their whole interest to procure such persons to be elected, as they judged would be most tractable. I look therefore on the creation of the ephori as a breach in the Spartan constitution, which proved the first inlet to faction and corruption. For that these evils took rise from the institution of the ephori is evident from the testimony of Aristotle, “who thought it extremely impolitick to elect magistrates, vested with the supreme power in the state, out of the body of the people;[14] because it often happened, that men extremely indigent were raised in this manner to the helm, whom their very poverty tempted to become venal. For the ephori, as he affirms, had not only been frequently guilty of bribery before his time, but, even at the very time he wrote, some of those magistrates, corrupted by money, used their utmost endeavours, at the publick repasts, to accomplish the destruction of the whole city. He adds too, that as their power was so great as to amount to a perfect tyranny, the kings themselves were necessitated to court their favour by such methods as greatly hurt the constitution, which from an aristocracy degenerated into an absolute democracy. For that magistracy alone had engrossed the whole government.” From these remarks of the judicious Aristotle, it is evident that the ephori had totally destroyed the balance of power established by Lycurgus. From the tyranny therefore of this magistracy proceeded those convulsions which so frequently shook the state of Sparta, and at last gradually brought on its total subversion. But though this fatal alteration in the Spartan constitution must be imputed to the intrigues of the ephori and their faction, yet it could never, in my opinion, have been effected without a previous degeneracy in their manners; which must have been the consequence of some deviation from the maxims of Lycurgus.