Eunuchs and sex: Beyond sexual dichotomy in the roman world

[erikboy (imported)]

Interesting text about eunuchs, their creation and function in ancient Roman culture.

The text is too lenghty to copy it all here, so I provide the link. https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bits ... sAllowed=y

May be one excerption from the text:

------------------------------------------

Eunuchs Compared to Desirable Boys

When slave eunuchs are young, Roman authors present them as being much like

any other favored slave boy. Their only physical distinction (aside from the obvious lack

of testicles) is that their castration allows them to keep their youthful, adolescent

appearance for a much greater length of time. The feminine softness and hairlessness

that is desirable in youths is not taken away by puberty. This artificial extension of their

youth and beauty is the source of their value.136 As Ringrose states, “[c]astration offered

an opportunity to restructure a prepubescent boy into an individual whose physical and

psychological properties were perceived to be distinct from those of a mature man and to

preserve elements of prepubescence that were valued by society.”137

Claudian

135 “Women do not go bald for their nature is similar to that of children: both do not produce seminal

secretion. Eunuchs also do not become bald, because of their change into the female.”

Arist. Gen. an. 784a.

136 Whereas once a eunuch becomes too old to maintain a pretense of youthful desirability, authors’

descriptions become much more hostile, as the next section will relate.

137 Ringrose (2003), 59-60.

specifically cites the extension of boyish adolescence as a reason for castration when he

presents various legendary accounts of the origin of the practice.

the Parthians prevented, by use of the knife, the shadow

of downy hair from growing and compelled the age of

adulthood to be delayed, with the flower of boyhood

preserved for a long time through artifice, to serve their

sexual desires.

Parthica ferro

luxuries vetuit nasci lanuginis umbram

servatoque diu puerili flore coegit

arte retardatam Veneri servire iuventam.138

For a desired boy to be soft and effeminate is no bad thing, unlike for a man. But

a boy who is not castrated is expected to grow out of youthful softness, and is considered

to have failed as a man if he does not. As Craig Williams writes, “While the effeminacy

of cinaedi was a serious failing, we will see that beautiful boys might be charmingly

butch or delightfully soft and girlish. In other words, boys could get away with things

that cinaedi could not. Indeed, one might say that the image of the cinaedus served as a

reminder of what could happen if the normative transition from passive, penetrated puer

to active, penetrating vir, did not take place as expected.”139

Eunuchs, however, are

failed men by design. They are not supposed to grow out of boyish softness, and by their

extended boyishness, remain objects of sexual desire.140

Beautiful young eunuch attendants were common amongst the imperial retinue.

Tiberius’s son, Iulius Caesar Drusus, possessed a favored eunuch amongst his slaves.

This eunuch, Lygdus, was “dear to his master on account of his youth and beauty and was

138 Claud. In Eutr. 1.342-45.

139 Williams (1999) 183. For the desirability of effeminate boys see Tibull. 1.4.9-14, Hor. Epod. 11.23-4,

and Mart. 12.75.

140 I shall further discuss the perceived sexual desirability of youthful eunuchs in Chapter Five.

among his principal attendants,” (aetate atque forma carus domino interque primores

ministros erat)

141

Nero had Sporus, an attractive eunuch youth he claimed as his wife.142

Suetonius states that Titus’ fondness for eunuchs was so great that Domitian’s motive for

outlawing castration was simply vindictiveness against his brother, despite Domitian

himself having a eunuch lover.143

That lover, the eunuch Earinus, is the most notable

eunuch puer delicatus, about whom both Statius and Martial wrote extensively.

In the fourth poem in book three of the Silvae, Statius writes of Earinus’

dedication of a few locks of his hair to the temple of Asclepius at Pergamum. He

compares Earinus to Ganymede the (not castrated) beloved youth of Zeus, and declares

him lovelier than Endymion, Attis, Narcissus and Hylas.144

The inclusion of Attis in the

list is particularly notable. Although Attis was not castrated when he first became

Cybele’s beloved, his castration is his most distinguishing feature. Statius carefully slips

a eunuch within his list of other mythological youths known for their beauty. He even

states outright that if Earinus had been born after Domitian’s edict against castration and

had not been made a eunuch, he would be a man now rather than a youth.

And you, now a young man, if you had been born later and

had darkened cheeks and stronger full-grown limbs, you,

joyful, would have sent not just one offering to the Phoeban

shore.

Tu quoque nunc iuvenis, genitus si tardius esses,

umbratusque genas et adultos fortior artus,

non unum gaudens Phoebea ad limina munus

misisses…145

141 Tac. Ann. 4.10.

142 Suet. Ner. 28. and Cass. Dio 62.13.

143 Suet. Dom. 7.

144 Stat. Silv. 3.4.12-19 and 4.39-45.

145 Ibid. 3.4.78-81. The second offering referred to here, which Earinus would have given had he not been

castrated, is presumably the first clipping of the beard, as described in Suet. Ner. 12.

Martial also compares Earinus to Ganymede, Zeus’ cupbearer and lover, in

epigram 9.36. As Domitian and Earinus are on Earth, so Zeus and Ganymede are in

heaven. Ganymede’s genitally intact state does not impede Martial from drawing a direct

parallel. Although Ganymede is not castrated, Zeus’ favor gives him an extended youth.

Ganymede, like Earinus, will never be a man. Although the comparison to Ganymede

might serve to downplay Earinus’ castration, it may also subtly point out that Earinus,

like Ganymede, will never be permitted to grow into manhood on account of the desires

of a powerful ruler.146

Castration interrupts the transformation into a man, but as age creeps up, a eunuch

cannot remain a soft and unmanly boy forever. They skip over the period of virile

adulthood and physically go from adolescent youths to unmanned elders. As Claudian

writes, they are “in the midst of boyhood and old age and nothing in between” (inter

puerumque senemque / nil medium).147

[Valery_V (imported)]

Thanks, very interestingly! Being a student I knew only about: "

Nero had Sporus, an attractive eunuch youth he claimed as his wife.

" We believed that it is amusing baize .

[Paolo]

At 147 pages, that a lot! I'd suggest using the 'save a copy' function for offline reading!