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An ephor was an official of ancient Sparta. There were five ephors elected annually, who swore each month to uphold the rule of the kings, while the kings swore to uphold the law.
Herodotus claimed that the institution was created by Lycurgus, but it may have arisen from the need for governors while the kings were leading armies in battle. The ephors were elected by the popular assembly, and all citizens were eligible for election. They provided a balance for the two kings, who rarely cooperated with each other. Plato called them tyrants who ran Sparta as despots, while the kings were little more than generals.
The ephors presided over meetings of the Gerousia, the oligarchic council of elders. They were in charge of civil trials, taxation, the calendar, foreign policy, and military training for young men. The year was named after one of them, like the eponymous archon of Athens. Two ephors accompanied the army in battle, and they could arrest and imprison the kings for misconduct during war. The ephors were also considered to be personally at war with the helots, so that they could imprison or execute any of them for any reason at any time without having to bring them to trial or violate religious rituals.
Cleomenes III abolished the ephors in 227 BC, but they were restored by the Macedonian king Antigonus III Doson after the Battle of Sellasia. The position existed into the 2nd century AD when it was probably abolished by the Roman emperor Hadrian.
Aristotle See Politics Book 2, Here some parts:
Some, indeed, say that the best constitution is a combination of all existing forms, and they praise the Lacedaemonian because it is made up of oligarchy, monarchy, and democracy, the king forming the monarchy, and the council of elders the oligarchy while the democratic element is represented by the Ephors; for the Ephors are selected from the people. Others, however, declare the Ephoralty to be a tyranny, and find the element of democracy in the common meals and in the habits of daily life. In the Laws it is maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and tyranny, which are either not constitutions at all, or are the worst of all. But they are nearer the truth who combine many forms; for the constitution is better which is made up of more numerous elements.....
The Cretan institutions resemble the Lacedaemonian. The Helots are the husbandmen of the one, the Perioeci of the other, and both Cretans and Lacedaemonians have common meals, which were anciently called by the Lacedaemonians not ‘phiditia’ but ‘andria’; and the Cretans have the same word, the use of which proves that the common meals originally came from Crete. Further, the two constitutions are similar; for the office of the Ephors is the same as that of the Cretan Cosmi, the only difference being that whereas the Ephors are five, the Cosmi are ten in number. The elders, too, answer to the elders in Crete, who are termed by the Cretans the council. And the kingly office once existed in Crete, but was abolished, and the Cosmi have now the duty of leading them in war. All classes share in the ecclesia, but it can only ratify the decrees of the elders and the Cosmi.
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