scytale;(534) summoned before a judicial tribunal;(535) and their first duty after their return was to visit the office of the ephors.(536) These officers also sent commands, with respect to discipline, to standing armies abroad,(537) Now in these cases the ephors must have acted, not upon their own authority, but as the agents of the public assembly;(538) it was their duty to execute the decrees of the people, the mode being left in some degree to their discretion. For this reason the assembly is frequently mentioned, together with the ephors, in the same cases in which on other occasions the ephors alone are represented as acting. The ephors were often manifestly mediators between the generals and the assembly. In the field the king was followed by two ephors, who belonged to the council of war;(539) it is probable that they had the chief care of the maintenance of the army, as well as the division of the plunder:(540) those ephors who remained behind in Sparta received the booty in charge, and paid it in to the public treasury.(541) We also find the ephors deciding with regard to conquered cities, whether they should be dependent or independent;(542) they suppressed the ten governors appointed by Lysander, nominated harmosts,(543) &c.; all evidently in the name and authority of that power, which it would have been against all principles of a free constitution to intrust to the college of ephors. 6. Although we are prevented from obtaining an entirely clear view of this subject, and particularly from pointing out all the collisions between the authority of the ephors and other magistrates, by the secret nature of the Spartan constitution,(544) it is yet evident that the powers of the ephors were essentially founded upon the supreme authority of the popular assembly, whose agents and plenipotentiaries they were. Every popular assembly is necessarily an unskilful body, and little able to act both with energy and moderation; least of all was the Spartan assembly capable of transacting and executing any complicated business. For this reason it intrusted to the ephors, who were chosen upon democratic principles from among the people, a power similar to that which the public leaders or demagogues of Athens exercised in so pernicious a manner. Plato and Aristotle compare their authority with a tyranny:(545) and it is to be remembered that in Greece tyrants continually rose from demagogues. Accordingly the ephors reached the summit of their power when they began to lead the public assembly: it is probable that this was first done by the ephor Asteropus, who is one of the first persons to whom the extension of the powers of that office is ascribed,(546) and who probably lived not long before the time of Chilon. The extensive political influence of Lacedæmon also contributed to give a greater importance to the ephoralty. Chasms arose in the constitution of Lycurgus, which had been intended for