among the ancient Greeks, a public officer who presided over the distribution of alms and provisions allotted for the poor. Cornelius Nepos, in his Life of Epaminondas, describes the office thus: When any person was reduced to poverty, taken captive, or had a daughter to marry and could not effect that object for want of money, the eranarcha called an assembly of friends and neighbours, and taxed each according to his means to contribute towards the relief of such person or persons.