Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

464 EPHIPPIUM.- EPHORI.
able homicide, whether from the similarity of the piim " denoted not a mere horse-cloth, a skin; or
latter (as regards the guilt of the perpetrator) to a flexible covering of any kind, but a saddle-tree,
acts of accidental homicide, or as requiring a like or frame of wood, which, after being filled with a
expiation. (Plat. Leg. ix. pp. 864, 875.) For stuffing of wool or cloth. was covered with softer
acts of wilful murder, on the other hand, the materials, and fastened by means of a girth (cinc/lpunishment was either death or aeivuyia, and lume, zona) upon the back of the animal. The
therefore no expiation (ca'Oapris) was connected ancient saddles appear, indeed, to have been thus
with the administration of justice in'such cases, far different from ours, that the cover stretched
so that there could be no objection against their upon the hard frame was probably of stuffed or
being tried by the court of the Areiopagus, though padded cloth rather than leather, and that the
its members did not of necessity belong to the old saddle was, as it were, a cushion fitted to the
aristocracy. horse's back. Pendent cloths (orp'laea7, st -tata )
Such briefly are the reasons which MUller were always attached to it so as to cover the sides
alleges in support of this hypothesis, and if they of the animal; but it was not provided with stirare valid there can be little doubt that the separa- rups. As a substitute for the use of stirrups the
tion alluded to was effected when the Athenian horses, more particularly in Spain, were taught to
nobility lost their supremacy in the state, and a kneel at the word of command, when their riders
timocracy or aristocracy of wealth wvas substituted wished to mount them. See the preceding figure
for an aristocracy of birth. This, as is well known, from an antique lamp found at Herculaneum, and
happened in the time of Solon. compare Strabo, iii. 1. p. 436, ed. Sieb.; and Silius
Lastly, we may remark, that the comparatively Italicus, x. 465.
unimportant and antiquated duties of the Ephetae The saddle with the pendent cloths is also exsufficiently explain the statement in Pollux (1. c.), hibited in the annexed coin of Q. Labienus.
that their court gradually lost all respect, and be-h
came at last an object of ridicule. [R. W.].
EPHI'PPIUM (a&opacig, irIrrlove, ei~rsreiov)B,
a saddle. Although the Greeks occasionally rode s'
without any saddle (eion *iXou hrirov, Xenoph. De 7 ) $
Re Eqzues. vii. 5), yet they commonly used one,
and from them the name, together with the thing,
was borrowed by the Romans. (Varr. DeRe Rust.
ii. 7; Caes. B. G. iv. 2; Hoer. Epist. i. 14. 43; The term "Ephippium " was in later times in
Gellins, v. 5.) It has indeed been asserted, that part supplanted by the word " sella," and the more
the use of saddles was unknown until the fourth specific expression " sella equestris."' [J. Y.]
century of our era. But Ginzrot, in his valuable E/PHORI ("Edopot). Magistrates called Ephori
work on the history of carriages (vol. ii. c. 26), or cc Overseers" were common to many Dorian
has shown, both from the general practice of the constitutions in times of remote antiquity. Cyrene
Egyptians and other Oriental nations, fioml the and the mother state of Thera may be mentioned
pictures preserved on the walls of houses at Hercu- as examples: the latter colonized from Laconia in
laneum, and from the expressions employed by J. early ages, and where, as we are told, the ephors
Caesar and other authors, that the term "ephip- were &7rc6vu/zoi, i. e. gave their name to their year
of office. (Heracl. Pont. 4.) The ephoralty at
Sparta is classed by Herodotus (i. 65) among the
institutions of Lycurgus. Since, however, the
ephori are not mentioned in the oracle which contains a general outline of the constitution ascribed
to him (Plut. Lycurg. 6), we may infer that no
new powers were given to them by that legislator,
or in the age of which he may be considered the
representative. Another account refers the insti.
tution of the Spartan ephoralty to Theopompus
( \ (. c. 770-720), who is said to have founded
this office with a view of limiting the authority of
the kings, and to have justified the innovation by
~17~ /~ ~, remarking that " he handed down the royal power
to his descendants more durable, because he had
diminished it." (Aristot. Polit. v. 9.) The in\~\( S 0t< V2'/(/ ~consistency of these accounts is still farther complicated by a speech of Cleomenes III., who is re- CR,/<,f4/ presented to have stated (Plut. Cleoz. 10) that the
ephors were originally appointed by the kings, to
act for them in a judicial capacity ( rpbs r' tcpive,v)
during their absence from Sparta in the first Messenian war, and that it was only by gradual
usurpations that these new magistrates had made
themselves paramount even over the kings themselves. Now, according to some authorities (Thirlwall, -list. of Greece, vol. i. p. 353), Polydorus, the
colleague of Theopompus, and one of the kimngs
under whom the first Messenian war (B. c. 743723) owas completed, appropriated a Pa:t of the