Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/483

 CLEOMENES. 475 and those are least afraid of any danger who are most afraid of a just reproach. Therefore it was well said that A reverence still attends on feax; and by Homer, Feared you shall be, dear father, and revered ; and again, In silence fearing those that bore the sway ; for the generality of men are most ready to reverence those whom they fear. And, therefore, the Lacedaemo- nians placed the temple of Fear by the Syssitium of the ephors, having raised that magistracy to almost royal authority. The next day, Cleomenes proscribed eighty of the citi- zens, whom he thought necessary to banish, and removed all the seats of the ephors, except one, in which he him- self designed to sit and give audience ; and calling the citizens together, he made an apology for his proceedings, saying, that by Lycurgus the council of Elders was joined to the kings, and that that model of government had continued a long time, and no other sort of magistrates had been wanted. But afterwards, in the long war with the Messenians, when the kings, having to command the army, found no time to administer justice, they chose some of their friends, and left them to determine the suits of the citizens in their stead. These were called ephors, and at first behaved themselves as servants to the kings; but afterwards, by degrees, they appropriated the power to themselves, and erected a distinct magistracy. An evidence of the truth of this was the custom still observed by the kings, who, when the ephors send for them, refuse, upon the first and the second summons, to go, but upon the third, rise up and attend them. And Asteropus, the