WORD OF THE DAY
eunuch
The traitor Tennes was put to death, but Mentor rose high in the favour of the king, and entered into a close alliance with the eunuch Bagoas, the king's favourite and vizier.
The conduct of a new campaign was entrusted to the eunuch Narses; Totila marched against him and was defeated and killed at the battle of Tagina in July 552.
Arcadius submitted at first to the guidance of the praetorian prefect Rufinus, and, after his murder (end of 395) by the troops, to the counsels of the eunuch Eutropius (executed end of 399).
An offshoot of the Khlysti is the more celebrated secret sect of the Skoptsi (skopets, a eunuch), which represents an extreme ascetic reaction from the promiscuous immorality of some (by no means all) of the Khlysti.
Johns, to whom reference has already been made, demurs (in a communication to the writer) to the fusion of the priest and the magician, and to the custom of " calling every unknown official a priest or a eunuch."
The sultan, throughout desirous for peace, is said to have been much under the influence of the chief eunuch, Haji Beshir Aga.
It deals chiefly with the struggles of the Byzantine army, under the command of the eunuch Narses, against the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Persians.
Cicero pondered over the fact; Arcesilaus explained the secession to the Epicurean camp, compared with the fact that no Epicurean was ever known to have abandoned his school, by saying that, though it was possible for a man to be turned into a eunuch, no eunuch could ever become a man.
The emperor at last complied, and in 552 a powerful army was despatched under Narses, an Armenian eunuch now advanced in life, but reputed the most skilful general of the age, as Belisarius was the hottest soldier.
635, during the reign of Heraclius, Antioch passed into Saracen hands, and decayed apace for more than 300 years; but in 969 it was recovered for Byzantium by Michael Burza and Peter the Eunuch.
Belisarius wrote to the eunuch pointing out the necessity of unity of purpose in the imperial army.
The only other important military operation of Narses which is recorded - and that indistinctly - is his defeat of the Herulian king Sindbal, who had served under him at Capua, but who subsequently revolted, was defeated, taken captive and hanged by the eunuch's order (565).
of his subjects was that no small portion of their contributions remained in the eunuch's private coffers.
At the close of 565 Justinian died, and a deputation of Romans waited upon his successor Justin II., representing that they found "the Greeks" harder taskmasters than the Goths, that Narses the eunuch was determined to reduce them all to slavery, and that unless he were removed they would transfer their allegiance to the barbarians.
The brutal treatment he had experienced in boyhood under the orders of Adil Shah, and the opprobrious name of eunuch with which be was taunted by his enemies, no doubt contributed to embitter his nature.