{"id":299,"date":"2024-03-08T01:45:07","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T01:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/?p=299"},"modified":"2025-12-04T19:01:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T19:01:36","slug":"eunuchs-in-the-roman-world-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/eunuchs-in-the-roman-world-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Eunuchs In The Roman World: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Eunuchs In The Roman World: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know | Transgender Ancient History\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WNcT3IlVXac?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c57944452aa9e21786514541539ca638 wp-block-paragraph\">So recently, I made a short out of my video on <a href=\"\/kybele-and-the-gallae\/\">an introduction to the Gallae<\/a>, where I talked about Rome&#8217;s complicated relationship with eunuchs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-715048ac55b6ecf3776a83db41655260 wp-block-paragraph\">One particularly morbidly curious viewer in the comments asked this question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-261a4612e3952ab66eefce0ac58bd107 wp-block-paragraph\">But what WAS the process? I mean, I understand the result but presumably there was more to it than just lobbing off the slave&#8217;s junk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-40225b1b8a8ec988a8b757696f46c240 wp-block-paragraph\">After I read this, I realized I didn&#8217;t actually know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9135eefcccf427a5a1a015abf4c29335 wp-block-paragraph\">So I did some quick research and realized there might be enough for a short video here, but if you&#8217;re looking at the status bar below you know this isn&#8217;t going to actually be a short video because apparently I&#8217;m incapable of brevity, but also there&#8217;s a lot to know about the topic, so heck, whatever, here we go again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6d8a65ce07eb546fa11458c3443928ff wp-block-paragraph\">Alan Plum, you have no idea the events you have set forth this day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fd5c8381c568b0758ed86faa567b25e8 wp-block-paragraph\">It turns out there&#8217;s a lot to eunuchs in the Roman world. The Gallae were a lot of fun, because they&#8217;re the most blatantly trans, but they weren&#8217;t the only people who were eunuchs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fcdd37c6ed9ba5852494ad874d30cd9a wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"\/category\/we-have-always-existed\/gallae\/\">The Gallae: The Transgender Priestesses of Kybele<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5313ec723d8a5a4f0d778df5f9aeff5f wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"\/the-rituals-of-the-gallae-transgender-priestesses\/\">The Rituals of the Gallae Priestesses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-dbf2c4c847a5c00042c565762d043459 wp-block-paragraph\">First off, we know who the Gallae were, why they castrated themselves, and how they did the deed. Check out the video that I&#8217;m probably going to link around here at some point for more details. But we also know not all eunuchs were Gallae.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a841b9328c79210e220112005cfcc12b wp-block-paragraph\">There were Christian eunuchs as well, but I&#8217;ve got a whole other video about that coming up, so stay tuned.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b6969a8ccbfe6dc545305ed95567ec6d wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"\/gender-transgression-in-early-christianity\/\">Gender Transgression in Early Christianity<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f63f42f69dfd6eaa5e2aa27dce32c600 wp-block-paragraph\">Today, we&#8217;ll talk about eunuch slaves, and why the deed was done. From there, we&#8217;ll take a look at the Romans&#8217; complicated relationship with eunuchs over the years and then explore the ghastly specifics of how the deed was done.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe0a7de2 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support The Channel On Patreon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bdbe8f6832bf40baef1c1e685d85d813 wp-block-paragraph\">Let&#8217;s get into it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<nav class=\"wp-block-stackable-table-of-contents stk-block-table-of-contents stk-block stk-e76f28e\" data-block-id=\"e76f28e\"><p class=\"stk-table-of-contents__title\">Table of Contents<\/p><ul class=\"stk-table-of-contents__table\"><li><a href=\"#chapter-i-eunuch-slaves\">Chapter I: Eunuch Slaves<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-ii-the-oddly-specific-and-creepy-as-hell-laws-around-slavery-and-eunuchs\">Chapter II: The Oddly Specific and Creepy as Hell Laws Around Slavery and Eunuchs<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-iii-making-sense-of-this-in-modern-terms\">Chapter III: Making Sense of This in Modern Terms<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-iv-the-romans-werent-fans-of-the-practice-of-making-eunuchs-in-the-first-place\">Chapter IV: The Romans Weren&#8217;t Fans of the Practice of Making Eunuchs in the First Place<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-v-how-did-they-do-it\">Chapter V: How Did They Do It?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-vi-why-were-the-romans-so-weird-about-eunuchs\">Chapter VI: Why Were The Romans So Weird About Eunuchs?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#ancient-sources\">Ancient Sources:<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#modern-sources\">Modern Sources:<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-74083936377055b4a8555c05ecdc6749\" id=\"chapter-i-eunuch-slaves\"><strong>Chapter I: Eunuch Slaves<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-00409b9b99420ef8b31068b59fe3da6b wp-block-paragraph\">Good times, good times. Nice light subject, this one. Relaxing, peaceful, sweet. Yeah, all good stuff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-42caa27a316f67a2250d9793883baecc wp-block-paragraph\">So, slavery.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-afd5a932371220c8157fe3143df0f827 wp-block-paragraph\">It was a big thing in the ancient world. It still is in the modern world too even though it&#8217;s de jure illegal in every nation on Earth, but if I start getting into the US prison industrial complex or the tens of thousands of people living in slavery in Qatar who prepared the country for the World Cup while FIFA just shrugged it off, or the people labouring in sweatshops cranking out cheap crummy clothing to satisfy the West&#8217;s nonstop lust for new consumer goods, I&#8217;m probably going to fall apart and weep at the absolute cruelty and injustices of this miserable goddamn world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0037bfb84cb3cf1e444e51b0d4931a8c wp-block-paragraph\">THIS VIDEO IS SPONSORED BY SHEIN, GET 10% OFF YOUR MORAL CRISIS WITH YOUR ORDER WHEN YOU USE THE COUPON CODE SOPHIEISSAD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cde321347ea385dd12c41eea769c3e54 wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, yeah, slavery was a big thing in the ancient world. The first time I read Homer, one of the passages that stuck out to me the most was the description of being dragged off into slavery. I&#8217;ve spent hours poring through my copies and I can&#8217;t find the specific passage, but to paraphrase: their hands were bound and their mouths gagged, so all they could do was raise their eyes in supplication to the gods to deliver them from the horrible fate that awaited them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fd7aae1d0d9073f5762638c01572df6f wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah, this part&#8217;s a bit of a drag, sorry gang.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-505e8908808fe31d397ae2f6981efd26 wp-block-paragraph\">THIS VIDEO IS SPONSORED BY WELLBUTRIN, SOPHIE&#8217;S GONNA GO BACK ON HER MEDS AFTER THIS ONE CAUSE SHE&#8217;S MAKING HERSELF SAD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e9e5b4a7b0fa0b927b6b0ab6a4f58899 wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, the Romans quite liked their slaves to be eunuchs. As I mentioned in the YT short that led me to put this whole video together, the Romans thought eunuch slaves were more likely to be obedient, and less likely to sleep with your wife. So if you wanted a teacher, a messenger, or a personal servant, and you had the dough for it, you&#8217;d prefer a eunuch slave over the alternative.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-53be3a9c689358f365b40e28f9e50342 wp-block-paragraph\">But they weren&#8217;t cheap. In fact, there was a whole complex legal system in place governing slavery, eunuch&#8217;ry, and eunuch slaves.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ca06b6ed1a81045967ed79d7f05023ee wp-block-paragraph\">But before we get any further, you might be asking yourself what this has to do with transgender history.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8b33a5c2f22dab4e0e6005103c54ca3b wp-block-paragraph\">And yes, it is a bit of a tangent, it&#8217;s true. In fact, this whole video is a tangent, so it might meander a bit more than usual. It&#8217;s not <strong>strictly<\/strong> transgender history in the modern sense, but I thought it was interesting enough to spend dozens of hours of my life reading, researching, and writing about it. And look, if Mia Mulder can call herself a historian while doing videos about whatever strikes her fancy, I can call myself a transgender historian and do the occasional video that&#8217;s a slight venn diagram outside the purview of this channel.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4832d2071ad0542ec06ff6b212743059 wp-block-paragraph\">Besides, remember what we looked at with the gallae \u2013 Roman legal precedent stated that eunuchs were neither men, nor women, but a secret third thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-03412d9159aa4f417933403f0eb8904c wp-block-paragraph\">So when we revisit Susan Stryker&#8217;s definition of <em>transgender<\/em> in a historical sense &#8211; \u201cpeople who move away from the gender they were assigned at birth\u201d &#8211; this sort of fits the bill. Though it might be more accurate to call them \u201cpeople who were moved away from the gender they were assigned at birth\u201d, but it&#8217;s still close enough, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5d81a16ed19bb229a3a2fddca6810d36 wp-block-paragraph\">No?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-59c42ba360e6b0c401d1b53c76680741 wp-block-paragraph\">Well whatever, I&#8217;ve already written the damn thing. We&#8217;re too deep already. And you&#8217;re already watching the damn thing, so you have no choice but to continue. You could navigate away, but then you&#8217;d miss out on learning about the oddly specific and creepy as hell laws around slavery and eunuchs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8035440db4f6681f2aa3a857c3162b90\" id=\"chapter-ii-the-oddly-specific-and-creepy-as-hell-laws-around-slavery-and-eunuchs\"><strong>Chapter II: The Oddly Specific and Creepy as Hell Laws Around Slavery and Eunuch<\/strong>s<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-aab537ecd0dfde2333cb5c6f15d90fb8 wp-block-paragraph\">The Corpus Juris Civilis, or Body of Civil Law, is what we now call a collection of laws issued by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I between 529 and 534 CE. But hold up \u2013 who were the Byzantines? I thought this was a video about the Romans!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3b46d1392ed4c7c43a769e9f5f507ec2 wp-block-paragraph\">The Roman Empire split in half permanently in 395 CE, becoming known as the Western Empire and the Eastern Empire. This was to make the whole thing easier to manage, not because of a rebellion or anything \u2013 they both considered themselves to be thoroughly Roman.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0baa8d870adf6543b4a1790210941ee5 wp-block-paragraph\">When we talk about the fall of the Roman Empire, we&#8217;re usually talking about the Western Empire, which fell in 476 or 480 CE, depending on who you ask. Julius Nepos was emperor in 474, deposed in 475, and retreated to the province of Dalmatia, which is modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia, and parts of Albania and Croatia where he continued to call himself emperor. Meanwhile, Romulus Augustus sat as emperor in Rome itself, but he was a meaningless boy king who was very quickly deposed by the Germanic general Odoacer when he conquered the city of Rome, in 476. Some historians say that&#8217;s when the Western Empire was done, but even though Rome the city was still the capital of the empire, it hadn&#8217;t been particularly important for decades at that point.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3cddd83407e7d8aab03f8c9607da1c01 wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, Julius Nepos stuck around, continuing to be recognized as Western emperor by the east, until 480 when he was assassinated. He didn&#8217;t have a successor, and the east didn&#8217;t bother to appoint a new emperor of the west, since there really wasn&#8217;t anything to be emperor over at that point. So he was the last western Roman emperor, and that&#8217;s why I think the Western Roman Empire ended in 480 CE.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-dbbe0643f533a2d15d3f4c5ae2fef976 wp-block-paragraph\">So, okay, who were the Byzantines?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6a4613d8c29a329f02a21f9f97b86f3e wp-block-paragraph\">The Byzantine Empire is the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople. The name is an invention by later historians, though \u2013 the Byzantines always thought of themselves as Romans. They stuck around for nearly another thousand years after the Western Empire fell, finally ending in 1453 CE when the city of Constantinople fell and the final emperor, Constantine XI, was killed trying to defend it against the Ottoman conquerors, and the light of the Roman Empire was snuffed out forever.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1d3a1ba4d7af6f80c1784e195cea4bf8 wp-block-paragraph\">My primary historical interest is classical antiquity \u2013 the 8<sup>th<\/sup> century BCE to around the 5<sup>th<\/sup> century CE. So I don&#8217;t know as much about the Byzantines as I do the western Romans. But they carried a lot of Roman traditions with them, and their system of law was based on Roman law and built on Roman precedents, so we can at least make inferences about how the western Romans would have done things based on how the Byzantines did it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-81b757cb7dd8fa584524d6e67cb4b9ab wp-block-paragraph\">Okay. So.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bef615434da85bae95a92a0c2ec47971 wp-block-paragraph\">The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 or 480 CE, and the Corpus Juris Civilis was written at some point between 529 and 534 CE, so this is about half a century later, and just a few years before the emperor Justinian&#8217;s troops, led by the general Belisarius, reconquered a significant amount of former Western Roman territory, including the city of Rome itself. They weren&#8217;t able to hold it for long, but yeah. Still Romans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9422dbba4c6c78d073ad700f8b9c1f1e wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, the Corpus Juris Civilis goes into <em>a lot <\/em>of detail on how to deal with slaves. It&#8217;s almost creepy how complex these laws become. People will literally devote years of their lives to setting out the very specific rules governing slavery, rather than just not letting people own other people. I guess it&#8217;s because those in power benefited from the situation too much. Financially incentivized cruelty, gotta love it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1f4d86d4b9987bffae1649887e47f5d9 wp-block-paragraph\">Book VI, title XLIII (43) focuses on inheritance law, but it actually reveals the market value for slaves as well. An adult with no particular trade was worth 20 <em>solidi<\/em>, but if they were skilled artisans they were worth 30 <em>solidi, <\/em>unless they were physicians or lawyers \u2013 then they were worth 50 <em>solidi,<\/em> and kids ten years old or younger were worth 10 <em>solidi<\/em>. But these were all non-eunuchs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-aad5b99779e42b2194aeeeb6c34c9545 wp-block-paragraph\">Eunuch slaves started at 30 <em>solidi<\/em> if they were 10 years old or younger, adults were 50 solidi, and if they were skilled tradespeople they were worth 70 solidi.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c7fd7ad66266450d5c1e396116da6777 wp-block-paragraph\">They were considered more desirable for the reasons mentioned before, but their value was further increased by the fact that not all of them survived the procedure. So as messed up as it might sound, the slave owner was taking a risk, financially speaking, by eunuching his slaves, so he needed to recoup that cost by selling them for a higher amount.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9338c9b9bc3e92f710e9d4480c6cf6fb wp-block-paragraph\">Good lord that last part was depressing to write&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8846350f1159e18edf3dbe2f39c52e43\" id=\"chapter-iii-making-sense-of-this-in-modern-terms\"><strong>Chapter III: Making Sense of This in Modern Terms<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7c930cae40909aa76e7d7af07f58bfca wp-block-paragraph\">A <em>solidus<\/em> was a mostly pure gold coin that replaced the <em>aureus. <\/em>It was introduced by the western emperor Diocletian in the early 4<sup>th<\/sup> century CE, and weighed 4.5 grams. It&#8217;s a complicated question to answer when looking at how much a <em>solidus<\/em> was worth at the time and I don&#8217;t want to get too into the thick of it here, but one way to look at it might be to consider the price of grains.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-866a641d7731576a76ce438a2a064d8e wp-block-paragraph\">Around Justinian&#8217;s time, they sold grain by the <em>modius<\/em>, which is similar to the modern \u201cpeck\u201d, a unit of measurement for dry goods. It&#8217;s about two dry gallons, and a <em>modius <\/em>is roughly equivalent. Ever heard that song, \u201cI love you, a bushel and a peck\u201d? Or the old tongue twister Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers? That&#8217;s what a peck means.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0e239c89005af0ea0e891fee53f04d19 wp-block-paragraph\">Around Justinian&#8217;s time, you could buy 100 <em>modii <\/em>of barley with a solidus. But that probably doesn\u2019t give you much of an idea of what that would have been worth. So now, despite this being a transgender history channel, we\u2019re now going to get into Roman culinary history, what a wild journey. I told you this was going to be full of tangents&#8230;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-eb65e10227bc164b75202b8d8bf5e171 wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, we don\u2019t have any actual Roman bread recipes, but what we do have is an actual loaf of Roman bread, preserved from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-096abc8f068d81a08135fbf7283263fa wp-block-paragraph\">Weird to think about I know, but it\u2019s true, and it&#8217;s one of the reasons why the Romans are so fascinating to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b5c51b6951be19d5b9bec369e0727efb wp-block-paragraph\">Walking through what we call the House of the Stags in Herculaneum, which is where this loaf of bread was found, we get an incredibly detailed view into what daily life was like for the Roman people. This loaf was stamped with the name of the person who cooked it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5f548e0090dc187b81ece2c39acb55e1 wp-block-paragraph\">His name was Celer, by the way, and he was a slave owned by Quintus Granius Verus, a merchant who owned the House of the Stags. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6bbc9f1bb2907552520aded5fe1a36f0 wp-block-paragraph\">We know the type of oven this bread was baked in, we know some of the other kitchen tools they would have had at the time, and we even know the ingredients they would have used to bake the bread. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-880183bb09cb646e4f6c1b53ee4b75f3 wp-block-paragraph\">We know Roman bread was designed to be pulled apart, based on its shape, which gives us insight on what it might have looked like for the Romans to sit down and have a meal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-69b467d5220125f29bf6efceb389ac43 wp-block-paragraph\">We also know the name of a slave, and at least a bit of his life, who almost certainly would have otherwise been forgotten to history. These little moments remind me of the environmental storytelling you see in games like Fallout: New Vegas, except instead of fiction, it\u2019s a real person\u2019s life you\u2019re peering into, frozen in time at the moment the apocalypse happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9bb4b4c669ba44eb22c5906f29e39b4d wp-block-paragraph\">It helps to humanize these stories as the experiences of real people, no less emotionally or intellectually complex than you or I. For all the tales of combat, of conquests, of clashing empires and dueling gladiators, of seduction, religious persecution, political intrigue, and assassinations, in many ways the life of a Roman was just as boring as yours or mine, and just as easily cut short by a cataclysmic event.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-21d29b54dbe99ed6bed4a9f34e1e5ac0 wp-block-paragraph\">So we don\u2019t have any ancient sources giving us a recipe, but based on analysis of this loaf, we can roughly figure it out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1b239dc0eaaef281dcebfd06d43bb748 wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@TastingHistory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Max Miller over at the channel Tasting History<\/a> actually baked it, which is a lot of fun. Check it out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Bread of ANCIENT ROME | Pompeii&#039;s Panis Quadratus\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Sw2qrt6tOKw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9a70f0e59f1646762596acd81b68d693 wp-block-paragraph\">His recipe calls for 1 kg of flour, and while they probably made this particular loaf out of wheat, they likely sometimes used barley as well since it was pretty common in Rome too.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-eefbb98e8a521f2cbdb2d274d40114dd wp-block-paragraph\">1 <em>modius <\/em>of barley will weigh about 5.5kg (rounding up), so you could use 2 <em>modii <\/em>to make about 11 loaves of bread.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2033453bbbacedd58ec74817a08a82c3 wp-block-paragraph\">So, if 1 solidus could buy 100 <em>modii<\/em>, it could buy the material you need to make about 550 loaves of bread, with maybe a bit left over. That gives us everything we need to figure out how much a literal human life was worth using the cost of materials to bake loaves of bread, wow does it not feel great to type that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3df2d835cc503fd6c73499bca3f4b30c wp-block-paragraph\">So, here we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a3795c26db1299cab61176cd4f4ca3b1\">Child younger than ten \u2013 5500 loaves of bread (10 solidi)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b60611b4dd77431497145edd8196e659\">Unskilled adult \u2013 11,000 loaves of bread (20 solidi)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-28202f43f1d38404f73594535d5b416d\">Skilled adult \u2013 16,500 loaves of bread (30 solidi)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-33019a037a35b653abc5e3139904d3e0\">Doctor\/lawyer adult \u2013 27,500 loaves of bread (50 solidi)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d84b51d9b552bba980678ea88748724e\">Eunuch child younger than 10 \u2013 16,500 loaves of bread (30 solidi)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8937a05f1930440f7e6a1ab92e2fcb54\">Eunuch unskilled adult \u2013 27,500 loaves of bread (50 solidi)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cd8a09ca4f875414af77d50805301553\">Eunuch skilled adult \u2013 38,450 loaves of bread (70 solidi)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-441f854fc2c6e9c4573eb0a61b0b2da1 wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously this is a huge oversimplification \u2013 it doesn\u2019t account for the variance in grain prices over time, or the other ingredients you\u2019d need to make bread, like salt, herbs, and sourdough starter. But hopefully it gives you an idea of the scale we\u2019re talking about here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d52fb1f51b648c1d9e1d202fd6c025c6 wp-block-paragraph\">So yeah, slaves weren&#8217;t cheap, and eunuch slaves even moreso. But while they did commonly use eunuch slaves, the Romans weren&#8217;t fans of the practice of making eunuchs in the first place.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe0a7de2 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support The Channel On Patreon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c33d37a7614c75ca493f7e4f26580252\" id=\"chapter-iv-the-romans-werent-fans-of-the-practice-of-making-eunuchs-in-the-first-place\"><strong>Chapter IV: The Romans Weren&#8217;t Fans of the Practice of Making Eunuchs in the First Place<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a361fc8659adb847033369a731d6bd86 wp-block-paragraph\">We see this as far back as the life of the emperor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldhistory.org\/Vespasian\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Vespasian<\/a>, as told to us by the writer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, or just Suetonius. He published his <em>Lives Of The Caesars <\/em>at some point between 117 and 138 CE, during the reign of Hadrian. It was a collection of biographies starting with Julius Caesar, and ending with Domitian. Vespasian was Domitian&#8217;s father, so his reign came first.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-65f331460f5b4b7da00e144c6cb863ae wp-block-paragraph\">Suetonius tells us that during Nero&#8217;s reign, Vespasian was made governor of Africa, which obviously isn&#8217;t all of Africa, but the Roman province of Africa, which includes the northern coast of modern day Tunisia, as well as the eastern coast of Algeria and the western coast of Libya. Suetonius tells us about his time there, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2d6a94b1bf2b270b3a183aa89e8e91f1 wp-block-paragraph\">He was then allotted Africa as his province, which he governed with marked integrity and not a little honour&#8230; Certainly he came back not at all richer, for his credit was so near collapse that he mortgaged his properties to his brother and was obliged to lower himself to trading in mules in order to keep up his position.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ef4846de32d4d9390d0eeb6b2713093c wp-block-paragraph\">&#8211; Suetonius, The Deified Vespasian, IV.III<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7a695fbe6368feb654f3be65ab863654 wp-block-paragraph\">Mules, of course, refers to eunuchs \u2013 a mule being the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, which is typically infertile.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-28f5a2668eaf5058762c1600431b6e8d wp-block-paragraph\">Another translation of that passage says he \u201chad to resort to\u201d trading in eunuchs, so clearly the Romans didn&#8217;t look too highly on the guys who were part of this practice.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b18d8f051c01cfb00f6bac9b95cd604d wp-block-paragraph\">Side note, at one point Vespasian introduced a tax on public street washrooms, which wasn&#8217;t terribly popular, especially in Gaul, modern day France. That&#8217;s why, to this day, public street urinals in France are called Vespasiennes. Don&#8217;t upset the French, they have a long memory.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-064fa61166f37afbbe73eed33e0ec38b wp-block-paragraph\">After Vespasian&#8217;s death in 79 CE, his son Titus became emperor. At first, the senate was worried they had another Nero on their hands, since he apparently had some debauched habits. But against expectations, he seems to have done a good job of ruling the empire. He&#8217;s best known for completing construction of the Colosseum, for the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum during his rule, and for dying just over 2 years after he became emperor. He was succeeded by his brother, Domitian.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cf52ebfbe9b69cfd82b76bf01b7d92f3 wp-block-paragraph\">And Domitian&#8217;s historical reputation is&#8230; not as great as his brother&#8217;s. He&#8217;s known for being a cruel, tyrannical, and authoritarian leader, driven as much by paranoia as a desire to lead. That paranoia might have come from the fact that he&#8217;d been openly conspiring against his brother, and may even have poisoned the guy so he could succeed him. Great guy. Great guy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ad094b471cae8850e16a10d4afe7501a wp-block-paragraph\">But again, how much of this is historical slander and how much a genuine portrayal of what happened? We don&#8217;t know.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-26a84692a5bfee0fed05b514a39600dc wp-block-paragraph\">But back to the topic \u2013 he had an interesting relationship with eunuchs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6d7734c843a7964236cac9c01ed099ee wp-block-paragraph\">On one hand, he banned the act of castration within the empire. According to Cassius Dio \u2013 remember him? He was one of our sources on <a href=\"\/transgender-roman-emperor-elagabalus\/\">the emperor Elagabalus<\/a>. He was extremely biased when reporting on our gal Ellie, but otherwise he&#8217;s considered a pretty reliable source. Anyway, according to Cassius Dio, his brother Titus had a particular affinity for eunuch boys, which \u2013 I mean, look how many powerful people took a trip to Epstein&#8217;s island, rich powerful people giving in to their basest, most depraved instincts seems to have a long history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c74095b9f65025750062749ecae6b9c6 wp-block-paragraph\">It was gross then, it&#8217;s gross now, and it&#8217;s one of the big reasons why anarchism is so appealing to me. If powerful people have been behaving this way for literal millennia, maybe the solution isn&#8217;t to just get a different powerful guy, but to get rid of the ability for guys to become powerful in the first place.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e1daec60cff27d585cfc903d87d7caa8 wp-block-paragraph\">Sigh.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a84dbce8cc176ed76660fa64548ff8cf wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, Titus was into young boys, and evidently Domitian had a problem with this, so he banned the act of castration within the empire.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5ae4cf76a23841130d19249ef306b6f2 wp-block-paragraph\">Not the act of f*cking young boys, mind you. It was the eunuching that was the problem.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0379e21b3dd1ee7e6406963db4031ee6 wp-block-paragraph\">Whynotboth.jpg?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e69c817a076ccecc7a04b4986a81733d wp-block-paragraph\">However, Domitian also had his own eunuch slave boy he quite liked, named Earinus. We actually know a fair amount about Earinus, thanks in large part to the writings of Martial and Statius.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-efd6f9322ac02340af074276ea86fb3f wp-block-paragraph\">From what we can tell, Earinus grew up in Pergamum, which is pretty close to Mt. Ida where <a href=\"\/myths-of-hermaphroditus-transgender\/\">Hermaphroditus<\/a> was mythologically born, and also pretty close to Pessinus, where the Kybele stone was before it was brought to Rome, and where the Gallae came from before the Kybele cult moved to Rome.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5fb87461dfd937b0c24ea240c10c68a9 wp-block-paragraph\">Why does so much ancient gender nonconformity come from Asia Minor?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-369052f96ce16ec473c1a1433a504621 wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, Earinus was brought to Rome as a very young boy, assumingly during the Domitian&#8217;s reign. Upon arrival, he was castrated, in order to preserve his, er, boyish beauty (yikes). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-96fe8e6ea9ca0e21a88f2040d0be9823 wp-block-paragraph\">Once delivered to the emperor, Earinus&#8217; job was to be his cup bearer. And if you know your mythology, this one might be setting off some alarm bells. Ganymede, the young boy about whose beauty a tremendous amount of ancient ink was spilled, was taken by Zeus to be his cup bearer as well, which is pretty universally recognized as shorthand for being there to satisfy Zeus&#8217; sexual needs. Martial noticed this too, and alludes to Ganymede when writing about Earinus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4daa9cc72d8f8f0354cd314b2693304f wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, Earinus stayed with Domitian for some time, wearing his hair past his shoulders, which was common for Roman boys. Eventually, Domitian freed Earinus and let him cut his hair, likely when he was in his late teens.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bd103924984ddd64ea945300b08b956d wp-block-paragraph\">I assume all this happens before Domitian&#8217;s anti castration laws, otherwise that would make him pretty hypocritical, wouldn&#8217;t it? And it&#8217;s hard to imagine an autocratic authoritarian being hypocritical about anything. Especially one who has extreme social conservative views.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ca8caa842f5e431f06047de0a2f14155 wp-block-paragraph\">Having appointed himself to the position of censor in the year 85, a government position that oversaw, among other things, Roman morals, he banned the act of castration, and imposed a limit on the amount slave dealers could charge for eunuch slaves. This was widely considered a positive thing, even though, again, the Romans liked their slaves to be eunuchs. We don&#8217;t know if he made an exception for the Gallae, but considering how devoted he was to the Roman state religion, it seems likely.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ba580e596166e614398d68c58f1bf767 wp-block-paragraph\">Domitian wasn&#8217;t the only emperor to pass laws around castration, but he seems to have been the first. But it&#8217;s funny, the more the Roman state restricted the creation and existence of eunuchs, the more they tended to make use of them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ef4588c1d3bd71410895c65565f9f4b2 wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s worth noting that while Suetonius says Domitian passed the castration ban, it might have actually happened under his successor, Nerva. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9352408287865e35ebcdc6851705abc4 wp-block-paragraph\">The Digest of Justinian, another collection of Roman laws from the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, says the punishment for eunuching was to forfeit half of all your property. It says this law was first created in the year 97, the year after Domitian&#8217;s death.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c9646bd5409becffbf46cf7af638988c wp-block-paragraph\">Fast forward a few years, and the emperor Hadrian passes another law banning castration. At least, we think he did \u2013 there&#8217;s some controversy there that I don&#8217;t care to get into. But with Hadrian&#8217;s law, the punishment becomes much more severe \u2013 it&#8217;s the same as homicide. It also punishes the eunuch as well as the person doing the eunuching, unless of course it was involuntary, though I&#8217;m not sure how you&#8217;d go about proving that. Constantine would also pass a eunuch ban around 200 years later, which suggests that either Domitian&#8217;s and Hadrian&#8217;s laws weren&#8217;t terribly effective, or an emperor between Hadrian and Constantine reversed the ban in an act whose memory doesn&#8217;t survive today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-94c5756ce067b36e19a4e070abddcbd5 wp-block-paragraph\">But people still got their eunuchs. Of course, if you already had the means to buy eunuch slaves, you could travel outside the empire to acquire them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e8a6583aa6d294b569d871766951d278 wp-block-paragraph\">The Historia Augusta \u2013 remember, super unreliable \u2013 also tells us there were eunuchs in the court of Elagabalus, but later emperors liked to have eunuchs as servants in their courts as well. But these eunuchs were increasingly less likely to be slaves \u2013 one eunuch, Eutropius, even served as a consul under the emperor Honorius in the year 399, the highest position in the Romann government after the emperor.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-41a30551cf6f62f7696bc21f6d23b348 wp-block-paragraph\">But okay, the Romans weren&#8217;t big on the process of eunuching people, and the emperors at least tried to restrict the practice, with varying results. What about the attitudes toward eunuchs in general?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3586578d584dd3f90d45f16676c95986 wp-block-paragraph\">We talked about this a bit in the gallae video \u2013 broadly speaking, they found people who eunuch&#8217;d themselves to be weird, and they wanted the gallae kept away from Roman society at large. But we&#8217;ll put them aside, because we&#8217;ve already got a full video on them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0a513a5f55a7da53fb6bbf1a99d00dcf wp-block-paragraph\">But other than that, Roman writers didn&#8217;t really seem to care much about eunuchs one way or another. Up until the third century CE, Roman writers seemed to report on eunuchs in a sort of matter-of-fact way. But from the fourth century CE on \u2013 coinciding with the Christianization of the empire \u2013 writers started to refer to \u201ceunuchism\u201d as a problem.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-06c751b2c882005c2a14944af11190ca wp-block-paragraph\">The Roman writer Ammianus Marcellinus, for example, wrote about this in the late fourth century. His work covered Roman history from the time of Nerva to the death of the emperor Valens in 378, though most of it is lost. What does survive covers the period from 353 to 378, and since histories of the late empire are relatively rare, this is great to have. He&#8217;s generally considered reliable and mostly impartial, though he very clearly has his own prejudices and moralizing attitudes. In particular, he looked down on eunuchism in the imperial court, seeing it as a moral decay that accompanied the structural decay of the empire. He was very negative toward any eunuch he wrote about, seeing them as by definition scornful people.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-40fb43ae192f6284f54677864542dcc8 wp-block-paragraph\">As an empire decays, as society&#8217;s institutions begin to show signs of fracture, those of the upper class become desperate to pin the blame on something. As a result, they find a small minority of people, at best curiosities and not well understood by the masses, and project all the pain, all the confusion, all the insecurity of their slowly splintering society onto them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-13e3b82b78076cf8644f330e7d1a9c9c wp-block-paragraph\">Sound familiar?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c8a2200f15d2165d06cda4d61f172643 wp-block-paragraph\">The more things change&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b30f01c0fa13291fb7016026e8d57e88\" id=\"chapter-v-how-did-they-do-it\"><strong>Chapter V: How Did They Do It?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-539d7cb2de0b09f9d08c3d0088f78f6b wp-block-paragraph\">Alright, so, back to the original question.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5b1a33292e7357fbbe867a305e2ea418 wp-block-paragraph\">How were non Gallae eunuchs created?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-afffdfcb27a9c58bfd5b46c85b66cdce wp-block-paragraph\">Believe it or not, we have a pretty detailed description of how the act was done, at least in the Byzantine empire.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4baa66241bc8b1ae4ca3b54682d10437 wp-block-paragraph\">Our Byzantine source is Paulus Aegineta, or Paul of Aegina. We don&#8217;t know much about his life, but here&#8217;s what we do know. He was born on Aegina, an island between Athens and Argos. He mentions Alexandria quite a bit, so it seems like he travelled there as well. He wrote in Greek, which was common for Byzantine scholars. And we know he practised as a physician. Based on who he quotes, and who quotes him, we think he lived during the 7<sup>th<\/sup> century CE. And that&#8217;s about it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b39bc57b9403a49a028fda9dac63e81c wp-block-paragraph\">He wrote a few different books, but his one extant work is commonly referred to as <em>Epitomes Iatrikes Biblio Hepta, <\/em>or Medical Compendium In Seven Books, though we don&#8217;t know what he himself called it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6ed89ee73d09e617f5606c33b10c6770 wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s an incredible resource when it comes to the history of medicine in the west \u2013 it includes just about everything the ancients knew.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-032f5fd65058d852cbb644157f3d5d24 wp-block-paragraph\">He talks about a lot of different subjects, and I&#8217;m definitely not going to list them all here but among many other things, he talked about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-eee19bd478585a895cb4bd23c5ee9179\">How to treat injuries like burns, sprains, contusions, nerve injuries, and dozens of different types of fractures and dislocations<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-838d996e6fc8367c28067fcbd38c3b5e\">How to treat several different types of ulcers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-625aafa0ffe1bfee73da0cf2340fab04\">How to treat dog bites, bee stings, spider bites, scorpion stings, and other poisonous and venomous injuries<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-222cfc5647bb229593c120f6cdcc1472\">How to recognize the signs of poisoning from lead, mercury, and toxic mushrooms<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a3a10bb7331040c724304d7a8dcf62d3\">How to perform a bunch of different surgeries on eyes<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-48d55b1ff0196da3ed693707a704acdf\">How to perform a mastectomy on \u201cmale breasts resembling the female\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-701a2a84c34446f52a390ab791bf831e\">How to recognize four different types of intersex conditions<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ab3b8a5c6254be21698bfa0043bd3d61\">And a whole lot more<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8c82ea2339ec3520def5bb29b78277de wp-block-paragraph\">He also has a separate chapter on how to perform a castration. We find that in section LXVIII (68) of Book VI. It reads thusly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6db61df0f220327f489b4054c707a34f wp-block-paragraph\">The object of our art being to restore those parts which are in a preternatural state to their natural, the operation of castration professes just the reverse. But since we are sometimes compelled against our will by persons of high rank to perform the operation, we shall briefly describe the mode of doing it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5d4f1612f20a2567e904fb7032f22aee wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s clear from how Paul writes this section that he doesn&#8217;t like performing castrations. After all, it&#8217;s the act of destroying healthy tissue, and he&#8217;d rather help people heal their injuries than cause new ones. But sometimes, the aristocracy forces him to do it, so he has to do it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d0aa5c561864b778c345fd4c470be5aa wp-block-paragraph\">Since it seems like the vast majority of castrations were involuntary, that makes a lot of sense. Considering he had a section on top surgery for gynecomastia, which also involved destroying healthy tissue, one imagines he might not feel the same way about voluntary castration.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fb8f75352eba8f426cb23502692de3bf wp-block-paragraph\">He continues,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1763baccd39fe1c2b252489788d75df9 wp-block-paragraph\">There are two ways of performing it, the one by compression and the other by excision. That by compression is thus performed: children, still of a tender age, are placed in a vessel of hot water, and then when the parts are softened in the bath, the testicles are to be squeezed with the fingers until they disappear, and, being dissolved, can no longer be felt.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a70a63ab5dfb95c6620a6d5af7e554a8 wp-block-paragraph\">And, just, good lord.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-10678bd5fca7ab6877622a258dad97b7 wp-block-paragraph\">The method by excision is as follows: let the person to be castrated be placed upon a bench, and the scrotum with the testicles grasped by the fingers of the left hand, and stretched; two straight incisions are then to be made with a scalpel, one in each testicle; and when the testicles start up they are to be dissected around and cut out, having merely left the very thin bond of connection between the vessels in their natural state. This method is preferred to that by compression; for those who have had them squeezed sometimes have venereal desires, a certain part, as it would appear, of the testicles having escaped the compression.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7283127ba8d9af0fc30df8a9b8d29ca6 wp-block-paragraph\">So, there you have it. Either you crush the bits into dust in a hot bath, or you make incisions where necessary to remove them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d850bd13010b7366229938705413e716 wp-block-paragraph\">That&#8217;s how they did it. Ta daaa!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-27c7c353d1301ec714b108937f49392c\" id=\"chapter-vi-why-were-the-romans-so-weird-about-eunuchs\"><strong>Chapter VI: Why Were The Romans So Weird About Eunuchs?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ab0bb4ac3a06e127dc1b6c061b7d90fb wp-block-paragraph\">So, walking away from all of this, what do we have?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-84f93768919621889b8abe5388a20219 wp-block-paragraph\">The Romans found the act of castration quite disturbing, but they wanted their slaves to be eunuchs. They wanted to eat their cake and have it too, essentially.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bd9c16c8db7986a6bd5687e24600f547 wp-block-paragraph\">But while they were legislating castration out of existence with one hand, they were writing manuals on how to perform castration with the other. They forbade castration within the empire, but gave eunuchs high ranking positions in the imperial court.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cd04dca3a1b0b39834a0690ce0b61d2d wp-block-paragraph\">This seems so wonderfully contradictory that you at first might think at some point I misread something, or one of our ancient sources is misreporting things, until you remember that a dozen or so centuries later, guys who owned slaves proclaimed the beginning of a new republic based on freedom and liberty. So yeah, history is kind of stupid sometimes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b0a10b96ccb795a5dcefd5ebe355adbd wp-block-paragraph\">But some historians argue it actually makes a lot of sense logically, if you view it as a way for the imperial court to funnel eunuchs toward itself for its own benefit, while depriving others of it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a2d6eeca09223cf1c1bb39b616f7d1f6 wp-block-paragraph\">After all, what greater sign is there of domination over the people in your empire than to hold a monopoly over emasculation? They&#8217;re your slaves, but you still don&#8217;t get to choose what happens to them. We can, but you can&#8217;t.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-55c92e36bae3e933f49b641b74d87603 wp-block-paragraph\">To draw another parallel to the United States, consider slavery. It never ended, not really. It still exists today, in the form of the prison industrial complex. You, a private citizen, aren&#8217;t allowed to own slaves. But the government is allowed to take away nearly all its people&#8217;s civil rights, and force them to work, all the while creating all sorts of absurd victimless crimes that disproportionately target ethnic minorities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-34599e46e6528cc5f4544b01d0df2b81 wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s not <em>that<\/em> different, philosophically speaking.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2d0110683f977f5c90e2b3e44f4f8e6c wp-block-paragraph\">But putting that aside, it&#8217;s not like government hypocrisy is unheard of.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-208ce7b6f799636288378246c0d4e5c6 wp-block-paragraph\">In 2021, Alabama state senator Tom Whatley was found liking trans porn on Twitter just a week after voting for a bill banning trans health care.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5cf10fecad93277cef8d9009a6297060 wp-block-paragraph\">Alex Jones, noted yelly angry man known for being anti trans and like 10,000 other awful things, showed his phone on video, and he was clearly watching trans porn. Ditto with hateful vespasienne Nick Fuentes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e563a15151ef67a27724b6d27657404d wp-block-paragraph\">Utah state Republican John Stanard, who ran on a family values platform, was found to have hired a Salt Lake City sex worker at least twice, despite having voted in favour of harsher restrictions on sex work.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8e07de227858620c545f499f43d3d5f3 wp-block-paragraph\">And oh yeah, there&#8217;s this guy \u2013 a twice divorced serial philanderer, convicted r****t, and best buds with the most high profile pedophile in modern history, or the literal messiah, depending on who you ask.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2cb4541ff125bdfe545e3550cea1918c wp-block-paragraph\">I could go on, and there are plenty of liberal examples too, but the further right you go the more of a hypocrite you tend to be.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1bfbe04734e243b39405cd1d58b8f239 wp-block-paragraph\">When it comes to making sense of the Romans&#8217; contradictory attitudes toward eunuchs, maybe we don&#8217;t need to look any deeper than that.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe0a7de2 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support The Channel On Patreon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"ancient-sources\">Ancient Sources:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7e7198f83798c0a2b4b3300f0df00372 wp-block-paragraph\">\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/aurelius-victor-h.-w.-bird-de-caesaribus-1994-liverpool\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Aurelius Victor. &#8220;De Caesaribus&#8221;. Translated with an introduction and commentary by H. W. Bird. Glasgow, Liverpool University Press, 1994<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.loebclassics.com\/view\/LCL032\/1914\/volume.xml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dio Cassius. &#8220;Roman History, Volume I: Books 1-11&#8221;. Translated by Earnest Cary, Herbert B. Foster. Loeb Classical Library 32. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/constitution.org\/2-Authors\/sps\/sps.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Corpus Juris Civilis&#8221; Translated by Samuel P. Scott. Central Trust Company, 1932<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/digitalcommons.law.uga.edu\/books\/117\/\">&#8220;Digest of Justinian Vol I&#8221;. Translated by Theodor Mommsen &amp; Paul Krueger, edited by Alan Watson. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/bwb_P8-BNY-780\/mode\/2up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Martial. &#8220;Epigrams&#8221;. Bohn&#8217;s Classical Library translation. New York, The MacMillan Company, 1897<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.loebclassics.com\/view\/LCL093\/1918\/volume.xml\">Pausanias. &#8220;Description of Greece, Volume I: Books 1-2&#8221;. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. Loeb Classical Library 93. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/sevenbooksofpaul02pauluoft\/mode\/2up\">Paulus Aegineta. &#8220;Epitomes Iatrikes Biblio Hepta&#8221;. Translated by Francis Adams. London, The Sydenham Society, 1847<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/isbn_2900192832718\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Suetonius. &#8220;Lives of the Caesars&#8221;. Translated by Catharine Edwards. New York, Oxford University Press, 2000<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"modern-sources\">Modern Sources:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-92e63df28f9a827379c86e133bd196f8 wp-block-paragraph\">\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lgbtqnation.com\/2021\/03\/alabama-republican-busted-looking-trans-adult-pics-online-voting-trans-rights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bollinger, Alex. &#8220;Alabama Republican Busted Looking At Trans Adult Pics Online&#8221;. LGBTQ Nation, 9 March 2021<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/news\/politics\/2018\/02\/08\/british-newspaper-says-rep-jon-stanard-resigned-after-meeting-call-girl-twice-for-sex\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Davidson, Lee, and Taylor W. Anderson. &#8220;Utah Rep. Jon Stannard Resigned After Meeting Call Girl Twice For Sex&#8221;. The Salt Lake Tribune, 8 February 2018<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepinknews.com\/2018\/08\/27\/infowars-host-alex-jones-caught-looking-at-transgender-porn-despite-anti-trans-rants\/\">Duffy, Nick. &#8220;InfoWars Host Alex Jones Caught Looking At Transgender Porn Despite Anti-Trans Rants&#8221;. Pink News, 27 August, 2018<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/4432726\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Henriks\u00e9n, C. \u201cEarinus: An Imperial Eunuch in the Light of the Poems of Martial and Statius.\u201d <em>Mnemosyne<\/em>, vol. 50, no. 3, 1997, pp. 281\u201394. JSTOR<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/laiou-economic-history-of-byzantium\/mode\/2up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Laiou, Angeliki E. &#8220;The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh Through the Fifteenth Century&#8221;. Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/classical-quarterly\/article\/abs\/ne-spadones-fiant-domitians-emasculation-ban\/AA28A138236A786D09D850B1544079B1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Lewis, Juan. &#8220;Ne Spadones Fiant: Domitian&#8217;s Emasculation Ban: Effectiveness And Purpose&#8221;. The Classical Quarterly 73.1 (2023): 257\u2013270<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/unromantest\/\">McElduff, Siobhan. &#8220;UnRoman Romans&#8221;. University of British Columbia Pressbooks, 2021<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/283778705_The_paradox_of_roman_eunuchism_A_juridical-historical_approach\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rotman, Youval. &#8220;The Paradox of Roman Eunuchism: A Juridical-Historical Approach&#8221;. Scripta Classica Israelica 34 (2015):129-150<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/wellcomecollection.org\/works\/s6ceusst\">Scholz, Piotr O. &#8220;Eunuchs and Castrati: A Cultural History&#8221;. Translated by John A. Broadwin and Shelley L. Frisch. Princeton, Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/4388621\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Strittmatter, Eugene J. \u201cPrayer in the Iliad and the Odyssey.\u201d <em>The Classical Weekly<\/em>, vol. 18, no. 11, 1925, pp. 83\u201387. <em>JSTOR<\/em><\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Sw2qrt6tOKw?si=7qH2IEgrxAxD3OHA\">Tasting History with Max Miller. &#8220;The Bread Of Ancient Rome | Pompeii&#8217;s Panis Quadratus&#8221;. YouTube. Uploaded 14 July 2020<\/a>. <br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/371587225_Slavery_in_Ancient_Greece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Vlassopoulos, Kostas. &#8220;Slavery In Ancient Greece&#8221;.  2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So recently, I made a short out of my video on an introduction to the Gallae, where I talked about Rome&#8217;s complicated relationship with eunuchs. One particularly morbidly curious viewer in the comments asked this question: But what WAS the process? 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