Doubtless the principal changes in the government inaugurated by Lycurgus were, first, the importance which he caused to be attached to the assembly of the people, and second, the restoration of the senate. By strengthening this body, which was originally composed of the heads of the gentes, the gentile organization was in a measure restored to its original dignity. The extreme anxiety felt in the time of Lycurgus lest the people’s rights be invaded, is shown in the fact that the three administrative functions of the government were supplemented by five ephors chosen annually as agents of the people, whose chief prerogative it was to scrutinize the acts of the chief magistrate and other guardians of the commonwealth. Although the office of the ephors is much older than the Lycurgan legislation,[188] it had previously been abolished, or had sunk into disuse. The ephors of Lycurgus were “probably appointed for the special purpose of watching over the Lycurgan discipline, and punishing those who neglected it.”[189] [188] Curtius, _History of Greece_, book ii., chap. i. [189] Rawlinson, book v., essay i. Later, however, when through the greed for gain and the inordinate thirst for power, the ephors in their turn had drawn to themselves the greater share of the powers belonging to the state, the military commander, or so-called king, became responsible to them for his conduct even while directing the army in the field. He received his orders from them, and although in cases of emergency he was authorized to exercise the power of life and death, according to Xenophon, they could accuse the king and compel him to defend his acts or suffer the penalty of death. By a gradual process of usurpation the ephors had, “by the time of Thucydides, completely superseded the king as the directors of affairs at Sparta.” The fact has been observed that the authority of the senate, a body which in earlier times had been composed of the heads of the genets, who were elected by all the people, and who held their office only during good behaviour, had, in the time of Lycurgus, through the growth of the monarchial and aristocratic party become weakened; and that, as the kings had drawn to themselves the powers formerly belonging to the popular assembly, the people were no longer represented, but had been obliged to surrender their independence to the authority of the military leaders. It is altogether likely, therefore, that the load under which the Spartans are said to have groaned, and from which Lycurgus is supposed to have released them, was the undue assumption of power by the _basileus_ and the aristocratic party; and that the chief service which he lent to the state was the sanction which he gave to those principles of equality and liberty which had been recognized and practised at a time when the gens as the unit of human society was still in its original vitality and strength, and when woman’s influence was therefore in the ascendency.