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It was men of this stamp that the Grecian States used to ask of Sparta for generals. They did not send to Lacedaemon for troops, but they said, "Send us a commander"; and Pausanias, or Gylippus, or Brasidas, or Agis, was despatched by the Ephors.
Those enfranchised helots thought they were maintaining a heroic state when, in fact, they were only turning its forms into a retrospective religion. The old race was practically extinct; ephors, gymnasia, and common meals could do nothing to revive it.
From the king to the Helot , the spirit of covetousness spread like a disease. No state in Greece was so open to bribery no magistracy so corrupt as the ephors. Sparta became a nation of misers precisely because it could not become a nation of spendthrifts. Such are the results which man produces when his legislation deposes nature!
In so grave an emergency messengers were sent to Sparta for advice. The Ephors themselves immediately repaired to the spot; and so desponding was their view of the matter, that they saw no issue from it but a peace. They therefore proposed and obtained an armistice for the purpose of opening negotiations at Athens.
VII. Though Lykurgus had thus mixed the several powers of the state, yet his successors, seeing that the powers of the oligarchy were unimpaired, and that it was, as Plato calls it, full of life and vigour, placed as a curb to it the power of the Ephors. The first Ephors, of whom Elatus was one, were elected about a hundred and thirty years after Lykurgus, in the reign of Theopompus.
They were obliged to be upwards of sixty years of age, and they held their office for life. They possessed considerable power and were the only real check upon the authority of the Ephors. They discussed and prepared all measures which were to be brought before the popular assembly, and they had some share in the general administration of the state.
This was a holy place in Sparta, where Pausanias, when convicted of treasonable correspondence with Persia, had sought refuge from the vengeance of the Spartans. He was kept a close prisoner in the temple by the Ephors, who set a watch on him, to prevent him from being supplied with food, and when he was reduced to the last extremity, brought him out to die.
When, however, the Ephors showed him the letter, and he perceived that "Others besides Odysseus can contrive," he retired in great confusion, and a few days afterwards, on meeting with the Ephors, informed them that he must go and pay a sacrifice to Ammon ; which he had vowed before winning his victories.
This threatening aspect of affairs determined the Ephors to recall Agesilaus, as already related. The allies were soon in a condition to take the field with a force of 24,000 hoplites, of whom one-fourth were Athenians, together with a considerable body of light troops and cavalry. The Lacedaemonians had also made the most active preparations.
He, still resolving to new model the state, bribed the ephors to send him out to war; and won the affections of many others by means of his mother Cratesiclea, who spared no cost and was very zealous to promote her son's ambition; and though of herself she had no inclination to marry, yet for his sake, she accepted, as her husband, one of the chiefest citizens for wealth and power.
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