Ephoros

Although, Lycurgus had, in this manner, used all the qualifications possible in the constitution of his commonwealth, yet those who succeeded him found the oligarchical element still so strong and dominant, and, to check its high temper and its violence, put, as Plato says, a bit in its mouth, which was the power of the ephoroi, established hundred and thirty years after the death of Lycurgus.

Pausanias was so slow in comprehending situations that he could not realize the approach of his end until he was directly informed by one of the ephoroi: […]

As a theorist, however, he recommends the constitution of a body of superior subjects who would have the task of reining in the will of the king; he argues for the value in their times of the Ephoroi of ancient Sparta.

[…] similarly to the archons and ephoroses hallmarked a certain era of their science.

I do not accept that the ephoroi of Lysias 12.43, 46, said to be chosen by ‘the so-called hetairoi’, were in any way state officials.

2-4. Κωμάζων: rare name not attested before the 1st cent. A.D.; perhaps our two ephoroi belonged to the same family, edd.pr.

If we consider the profound changes that were initiated, or at least catalyzed by literacy in state burocracy, the pre-emtion^([sic]) of the move that threatened to subvert the state and endanger the privileges of the gerons, ephoroses and kings, that is, the guardians of the law, (where the word "guardian" means both "keeper" and "controller") is easy to understand.