For this reason it was necessary for the royal heroes Agis and Cleomenes, when, in a fruitless but glorious struggle with the degenerate age, they undertook to restore the constitution of Lycurgus, to begin with the overthrow of the ephors.(556) 8. The undefined and vague nature of the authority of the ephors(557) is strongly opposed to the accurate designation of the duties of the other annual officers. Although there were many officers of this description at Sparta, we seldom find any mention of them, as they rarely overstepped the legal bounds of their authority. Yet it is possible that the name τέλη,(558) which is so frequently used for the presidents of the assembly, and the high court for state offences, and which to a foreigner rather concealed than explained the internal affairs of Sparta, comprehended other magistrates, according to the circumstances of the case, besides the kings, councillors, and ephors. The nomophylaces and bidiæi,(559) as well as the ephors, had their offices in the market-place. The duties of the former officers are declared by their name, of their number we know nothing; of the latter there were five, and their business was to inspect the gymnastic exercises.(560) The harmosyni were appointed to superintend the manners of the women;(561) the buagi regulated a part of the education; to the empelori belonged the market-police.(562) The polemarchs also, in addition to their military functions, had a civil, together with a certain judicial power. In some Laconian inscriptions, belonging to the Roman time, many names of nomophylaces, buagi, and σύσσιτοι of the magistrates are recorded; the meaning of the latter distinction is obscure. The election of regular nomophylaces was an occurrence somewhat unusual.(563) With regard to later times we may further observe, that the ephoralty, which was abolished by Cleomenes, was re-established under the Roman dominion;(564) and that the same king instituted a college of πατρονόμοι in the place of the gerusia,(565) although Pausanias again mentions gerontes; unless it is possible that the two councils coexisted. An inscription of the second century of the Christian era(566) mentions a σύνδικος at Sparta, a public advocate, and δαμοσιομάστης, a public inquisitor, and interpreter of the laws of Lycurgus, concerning whom, as well as others of the magistrates here mentioned, we will say more hereafter.(567) Chapter VIII. § 1. The Cosmi of Crete. § 2. Changes in their powers. § 3. The Prytanes of Corinth and Rhodes. § 4. The Prytanes of ancient Athens. § 5. The Artynæ of Argos; the Demiurgi in several states of Peloponnesus.