Eunuchs in the Byzantine Empire

by

Charis Messis

• LAST MODIFIED: 22 November 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396584-0339

Introduction

By the term eunuchos, as well as by the terms thladias (a man whose testicles were intentionally crushed), spadon (a eunuch due to natural reasons), and ektomias (a castrated man), which designated different types of eunuchs, the Byzantines identified any male person deprived, fully or in part, of his genitals. This may have occurred in early childhood or at a later age, of his own will, through natural processes, or by the acts of others, and it may have happened for moral, medical, or economic purposes. A eunuch could also be any person who, for natural reasons, a lack of hygiene, or other reasons, had become permanently or temporarily unfit to procreate, or even, in some cases, to sexually perform. These terms also appear in theological contexts to reflect the situation of pre- or post-lapsarian man, as well as to sometimes denote the angels. Therefore, as a concept expressed through many terms, eunuch referred to a variety of cases and people, situations, and behaviors; at the same time, it alluded to the biblical imaginary and the theological symbolism established upon it. However, the secondary literature dedicated to eunuchs has until now mainly focused on the ektomiai, or castrati, and the roles they assumed in Byzantine society. The history of the study of eunuchs in Byzantium closely follows and, in a way, exemplifies the ways in which modern historians have viewed Byzantium itself more generally (i.e., in close relation to the values of their own societies). In general, moving past the strongly orientalist perspective which prevailed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars proceeded to study the role of eunuchs in the administration of state and Church. Eunuchs are treated in these approaches as a separate category of people or as influential individuals who were sometimes even worthy of a biography. In recent years, eunuchs have begun to be treated as sexual beings and a discussion has arisen concerning the question of whether they constituted a third sex or gender or whether they remained within the margins of the sexual dimorphism that was seen as a divinely established ‘reality.’ These approaches, which appeared successively, are now studied in a comprehensive fashion and have given rise to a fairly diversified bibliographical landscape, where the study of the political role of eunuchs coexists with that which focuses on their sexual identity. An openly orientalist (and regressive) approach nevertheless remains present in publications for the general public and in historical novels.

General Overviews

The first book devoted to eunuchs is Ancillon 1707 and dates back to the beginning of the eighteenth century In this historical and moral exposition, a great part is dedicated to Byzantium and its eunuchs. The great historical synthesis of Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London 1776–1788, especially chapter 19) presents eunuchs as a sign of the moral decadence and effeminacy of customs which led from the Roman to the Byzantine empire. The historiographical studies that follow Gibbon, which speak of eunuchs in an incidental way while describing other Byzantine realities, are indebted to this image. The second step in the study of eunuchs took place in the twentieth century. Browe 1936 examines the presence of eunuchs in Christian imagery and the new symbolism which was established around them, Guilland 1967 explores the roles and functions of eunuchs in the administration of the Byzantine Empire, Hopkins 1978 and Guyot 1980 study the links of court eunuchs to slavery within the framework of the Roman empire during late antiquity. The fundamental idea behind these approaches is that the eunuch, through his sexual and social isolation, empowers the emperor and acts as an intermediary between the monarch and the political sphere. Thus eunuchs held alternative forms of power to that of the traditional elites, much more appropriate for the Roman and Byzantine monarchies which, during late antiquity, had supposedly been adopting the political and symbolic appearances of the Persian and Hellenistic kingdoms. At the beginning of the twenty-first century a new approach to the study of eunuchs was popularized, that of gender, which,with the studies of Kuefler 2001 and Ringrose 2003, opened up innovative perspectives. The monographs, collections of articles, and individual studies that follow, especially those of Tougher 2002, Tougher 2008, Tougher 2021, and Spadaro 2005, take into consideration all aspects of eunuchs’ activity (political and sexual), during both late antiquity and Byzantium. Some approaches, as that of Messis 2014, no longer seek to explore the “reality” of eunuchs, but the presence of eunuchs in texts as cultural and rhetorical constructions which reveal how the Byzantines perceived and expressed sexual differentiation. Finally, we can find useful information on the eunuchs who left a mark on Byzantine history in the great encyclopedic and prosopographical syntheses of the field, such as The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, edited by A.P. Kazhdan, 3 vols. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, edited by A.H.M. Jones, H.I. Marrou, J. Morris, and J.R. Martindale, 3 vols. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971–1992) (PLRE); the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, Vol. 1, (641–867), and Vol. 2, (867–1025), edited by Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, et al. (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1998–2013) (PmbZ); and the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, edited by E. Trapp (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1976–1996) (PLP). Most of the monographs cited below deal with these subjects and study and comment on the same textual evidence: the typology of eunuchs, the methods of their castration, their ethnic and social origin, role in the administration of state and Church, presence in the army, relationship with holiness, assimilation to angels, and many other themes. What differentiates these approaches is the proper vision that each scholar brings to their sources.

• Ancillon, Charles. Traité des eunuques. Paris, 1707.

  The first monograph dedicated to eunuchs and written to warn a woman who wanted to marry a eunuch. Divided into three parts, the first constitutes an introduction to the subject of eunuchs with a presentation of the causes and methods of castration, as well as the roles they played in society, with many examples taken from Byzantine history. The other two parts are devoted to the legal and moral problems of the marriage of eunuchs. (Translated into English by. R. Samber, Eunuchism Display’d [London: E. Curll, 1718])

• Browe, Peter. Zur Geschichte der Entmannung. Breslau, Germany: Verlag Müller & Sieffert, 1936.

  The author examines the presence of eunuchs in ancient societies, including Byzantium, the attitudes of the Fathers of the Church towards them, the interpretations of the biblical passages which talk about eunuchs, and the laws and canons concerning them.

• Guilland, Rodolphe. Recherches sur les institutions byzantines. Vol. 1. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967.

  In this collection of articles previously published in journals, a large part is devoted to the offices and titles of court eunuchs in Byzantium (e.g., parakoimomenos [“the one who sleeps beside the emperor's chamber”], protovestiarios [“the keeper of the emperor’s wardrobe”]). These articles are preceded by the author’s fundamental study, “Les eunuques dans l’empire byzantin” (Revue des Etudes Byzantines 1 [1943]: 197–238), where he makes the first synthetic presentation dedicated to eunuchs in the Byzantine Empire.

• Guyot, Peter. Eunuchen als Sklaven und Freigelassene in der griechisch-römischen Antike. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980.

  As indicated in the title, the author deals with eunuchs as slaves and freedmen in Greco-Roman antiquity. He examines sources from the Hellenistic and Roman era, and presents the use of eunuchs in private houses and the court, as well as their political influence. His conclusion is that only from the fourth century onwards was their use institutionalized to limit the power of the Roman aristocracy.

• Hopkins, Keith. Conquerors and Slaves. Sociological Studies in Roman History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

  The author, in this hugely influential book, examines the power and the privileges that eunuchs enjoyed in the late Roman court and offers a sociological explanation: Profound changes occurred in the power structures of the Roman society as a whole. The role of the eunuchs in these changes was strategic because they helped create the image of a sacred and isolated emperor in tension with other foci of power in Roman society.

• Kuefler, Mathew. The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

  Divided into two parts (Changing Realities and Changing Ideals), the book discusses the slow transformation which led from the masculinity of the Roman elite, based on a moral code which cultivated aristocratic excellence and military virtus, to the Christian one, which was based on sexual renunciation (the manly eunuch). This transformation is due to changes of a political and social order, as Roman aristocrats increasingly distanced themselves from the army and the administration of the empire.

• Messis, Charis. Les eunuques à Byzance entre réalité et imaginaire. Paris: EHESS, 2014.

  In addition to the historical conditions (legal, social, and political) of eunuchs in Byzantium, the author studies the relationship between this reality and the representations that the Byzantines formulated. By drawing on a variety of texts, he presents a history not merely of eunuchs but of multiple discourses on eunuchs.

• Ringrose, Kathryn. The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

  DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226720166.001.0001

  Divided into two parts, one theoretical and the other historical, this book is the first consistent and innovative effort to place eunuchs at the center of the gender system in Byzantium. Ringrose’s fundamental idea is that eunuchs constituted a third gender through the roles they assumed in the court and the Church and through specific status-signs: dress, physical appearance, voice, and emotionality. The eunuch thus assumed the role of the perfect servant.

• Spadaro, Maria-Dora. “Gli eunuchi nell’impero bizantino.” In Comportamenti e immaginario della sessualità nell’alto medioevo. Edited by Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 535–566. Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 53. Spoleto, Italy: Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2005.

  A general and succinct overview of the presence of eunuchs in public life in Byzantium. The author discusses the legal, canonical, and medical aspects of castration, and furthermore analyzes the predominantly negative attitudes of historians towards them, concluding with a discussion of Theophylact of Ochrid’s treatise In Defense of Eunuchs.

• Tougher, Shaun. The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.

  The author takes up a discussion previously presented in articles and offers a comprehensible overview of the presence of eunuchs in Byzantium. His main idea, worthy of more in-depth analysis, is that eunuchs function as symbols of imperial status. The book is also important because it tracks changes in the social and political presence of eunuchs over the centuries. Finally, his comparative approach allows readers to have a more general vision of the phenomenon of castration.

• Tougher, Shaun. The Roman Castrati: Eunuchs in the Roman Empire. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

  DOI: 10.5040/9781474217187

  The author sets forth the prehistory of Byzantine eunuchs by presenting, especially through a series of portraits (e.g., galli, Terence’s Eunuch, Sporus and Earinus, the sophist Favorinus of Arles, the praepositi sacri cubiculi [“provosts of the sacred bedchamber”] Eusebius and Eutropius, and the general Narses), the political and religious roles of eunuchs from the period when Rome conquered the east and became an empire until the sixth century CE.

• Tougher, Shaun, ed. Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond. London: The Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 2002.

  A collection of thirteen contributions dealing with eunuchs throughout history, from China to today’s United States. Of Byzantine interest are seven contributions. Two contributions (chapters by Lightfoot and Hales) deal with Oriental cults in literature and art. Stevenson explores the meaning of the term ‘eunuch’ in ancient Christianity. Tougher inquires into the ethnic origins of court eunuchs, Sideris discusses positive representations of eunuchs in the middle Byzantine period, while Mullet focuses on Theophylact’s treatise In Defense of Eunuchs, and Gaul presents the role of eunuchs in the Palaiologan period.