The Emasculation of the Calchedonians

[JesusA (imported)]

After nearly a year of searching libraries and working through interlibrary loan at two different libraries, I finally managed to acquire a copy of an article that I have wanted to read:

Bosworth, AB (1997). The Emasculation of the Calchedonians: A forgotten episode of the Ionian War. Chiron 27: 297-313.

Calchedon was a Greek city-state located across the Bosporus from Byzantium. Bosworth begins with a passage in the Bithyniaca of Flavius Arrianus that reports that the people of Calchedon remember every year on the 22nd of the month of Metageitnion, the disaster visited upon them in 411 BCE after their defeat by the Persian general Pharnabaus. On that day, the Persians gathered up all the male children of the city and castrated them before sending them off to King Darius.

Bosworth points out that this was not the first time that the Persians had castrated all of the male children after defeat of a rival. He notes that at the end of the Ionian Revolt, back in 494 BCE, the Persians had threatened to castrate the sons of their rivals and Herotodus wrote that they had followed through on their threat after their conquest of the islands of Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos:

whenever the Persians took one of the islands, they ‘trawled’ for the inhabitants. ‘Trawling’ involves forming a chain of men with linked arms across the island from the northern coast to the southern coast, who then traverse the whole length of the island hunting people down. They also captured the Ionian settlements on the mainland just as easily; trawling for the inhabitants was not feasible, however, so that manoeuvre was not carried out.

At this point the Persian commanders did indeed carry out the actions they had threatened the Ionians with when the Ionians had pitched camp opposite them. That is, when they had conquered the settlements, they picked the best-looking boys and castrated them, cutting off their testicles and turning them into eunuchs; they also took the most attractive girls and sent them to the king as slaves….

---Herodotus, The Histories, Translated by Robin Waterfield. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), Book 6, chapters 31 & 32 (page 362)

There is another incident preserved in the literature of what may have been a much more common event for the Persians. Again, from Herodotus:

The Corinthians were also happy to contribute towards the realization of the expedition against Samos, because a generation previously (at about the same time as the theft of the bowl) they too had met with offensive treatment at the hands of the Samians. Periander the son of Cypselus had sent to Alyattes at Sardis three hundred male children, the sons of the leading families of Corcyra, for castration. The Corinthians who were taking the boys there put in at Samos, and when the Samians found out the reason why the boys were being taken to Sardis, the first thing they did was teach the boys about making contact with the sacred ground of the sanctuary of Artemis, and then they made sure that no one dragged the boys out of the sanctuary once they had taken refuge there. When the Corinthians cut off the boys’ provisions, the Samians instituted a festival (which is in fact still celebrated in the same way nowadays), which involved unmarried girls and boys dancing every night, for the duration of the Corcyran boys’ asylum in the sanctuary, and then they made it a rule of the festival that the dancers had to carry snacks of sesame and honey, so that the Corcyran boys could snatch them out of their hands and get food. This went on until the Corinthians who were guarding the boys gave up and went away; then the Samians took the boys back to Corcyra.

---Book 3, chapter 48 (pages 189-90)

At a much later date, the Chinese also employed mass castration of boys after the defeat of rivals. Rebellions of the Miao peoples in southwest China during the Ming Dynasty were ended with the beheading of all adult males, the castration of all male children, and the giving of all the women and girls to the victorious troops. The Chinese were clear that the intent was to exterminate the defeated people. The great Chinese general Zheng He was castrated after a revolt in Yunnan Province was put down and the young sons and grandsons of the leaders were all castrated. The most recent such event that I have found was after a revolt by Moslem peoples in western China was put down in 1877, the leaders and their adult sons were beheaded and their young children and grandchildren were all castrated as a warning to others. (The last of the boys was not castrated until 1884, as the minimum legal age for judicial castration was 11.)

There is a Chinese feature film, 征服者 (The Conqueror), depicting the end of the White Lotus Rebellion (1796-1804) in Sichuan, Hubei, and Shaanxi provinces. The film depicts the beheading of all captured male rebels over the age of 15 and the castration of all boys ages 8 to 15. The younger boys were to be held in captivity until their 8th birthday when, they too, were to be castrated. The White Lotus sect was to be totally exterminated. The film centers on one woman and a small boy who escape. The implication is that one male was not castrated and his descendants (and therefore the White Lotus sect) may still survive. It’s estimated that over 100,000 followers of the White Lotus sect were killed or castrated.

[Ernie of Maine (imported)]

Thank you Jesus

[Eunuchorn (imported)]

Chinese Castration usually produced a nullo. Were the children castrated in any different way than has been described here previously?

[JesusA (imported)]

Chinese Castration usually produced a nullo. Were the children castrated in any different way than has been described here previously?

The information that I've found so far is only that they were castrated and sent to a remote military outpost as laborers.

[talula]

Heheh. Does that translate to "The Salt Mines"? I know, shut up....

[gandalf (imported)]

The information that I've found so far is only that they were castrated and sent to a remote military outpost as laborers.

Makes me wonder what they labored at.