Third-Gender World of Eunuchs

The protagonist Gaius Galen Licinius’ life was altered by his nearly being made a eunuch at his father’s wishes at age 10. The eunuch Chrysanthos, whom Gaius’ father took him to for the third-gender transformation, refused to do it. It was a life-changing event for Gaius. He hadn’t seen Chrysanthos until 13 years later, which is the time of this story. The reconnection was near traumatizing for Gaius but also opened a new relationship with Chrysanthos when Gaius turns to him for support he offered.

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Gaius visits Chrysanthos in his home, which is a common home for several eunuchs in imperial service. While under the care of Chrysanthos and his physician assistant Herulian, Gaius learns quite a bit about eunuchs. For a thousand years all across the East, eunuchs were made to act as buffers between rulers and others. Eunuchs could be trusted completely – or more completely than anyone else, particularly a person who could benefit from the death of a relative. Many eunuchs were also schooled in intricate skills, such as high-level finance and investing, and other complex dealings that most men considered to be too unmanly to pursue. Chrysanthos was the (fictional) steward of the minister Tribonian. Real eunuchs from this time period include Narses, (right) the emperor’s chamberlain and an excellent general, and Solomon, the admiral of the Eastern Roman navy.

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But life for a eunuch who doesn’t succeed can be bitterly coarse and demeaning. Many became eunuchs, most always through parents’ wishes for their child to attain the lofty status a eunuch could attain, in Paphlagonia, a source of prime specimens in the illegal trade of eunuchs in the Eastern Roman Empire. During his short stay with Chrysanthos, Gaius learned about how eunuch’s bodies changed from the transformation as well as their emotions. He appreciated the tight family nature of the eunuchs and he learned more about their skills, including a strong connection to medicine. In fact, Gaius is under Herulian’s care for mania and possibly melancholia. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 18 of their conversation while Gaius is medicated with Levity, a drug of Herulian’s to raise one from melancholia…

 

After a while, with my mind unburdened by Levity, I asked, “Herulian, do you eunuchs hump each other, or who do you have sex with? I really don’t know.” I laughed out loud at how silly I sounded.

 

“Gaius Galen, that’s a common source of much misinformation,” he replied. “These things depend on the physical condition of the individual at the time of his alteration, and the quality of his mind and discipline.”

 

“Alteration? You make it sound as if a tunic’s hem were being adjusted.” That also seemed very funny.

 

Herulian smiled and crossed his arms as I laughed at myself. He did resemble Messalina – the chestnut hair, the mischievous upward sweep at the corner of his eyes, which unlike hers were a light brown with piercing speckles of translucent blue.

 

“Some of us,” he said, “do not ‘hump’ anything or anybody. We have lost the drive for passion and sex – and more to the point, have refined and controlled our desires. Desires are naturally weaker than those you full males have, the hot and dry fires that push you forward in life. Eunuchs are like women and children, moist and soft. When we lost the influence of our testicles, we became unbalanced, and without the active influence of testicles that are the source of heat, we are sprung into a third realm of sexuality, straddling the world of man and woman.”

 

“Out of balance? I would certainly say so,” I said, pretending to lose my balance. Herulian smirked and said my dose of Levity was too strong.

 

“But this straddling,” I asked, “who do eunuchs straddle?”

 

“Alright Gaius Galen, if we must. Some eunuchs enjoy women, though not to any reproductive purpose. Still, they can attain the rigid manliness you might think a eunuch could not. And some eunuchs, like some men, prefer men or boys to play with. These are sometimes called natural eunuchs. Are we finished with this boyish tittering?”

 

“Yes – no, we are not finished. You do have a penis, correct?” I shrugged. “I am embarrassed at my ignorance.”

 

He said he did and grabbed at his crouch obscenely.

 

“But your testicles, were they cut out?”

 

“No, not mine,” he said patiently. “Cut men, as they are known, do lose their testicles. Boys who are double castrated lose their testicles and penis, and most often become sex objects. But the castration of most eunuchs involves one of two methods. Either a snip through a small hole in the sack and then blocking the blood supply to the testicles, which renders them useless. Or the pre-pubescent boy’s scrotum is soaked in hot water, and his testicles are then crushed by hand, which severs them from the body as far as functionality but they remain in the scrotum.” He looked kindly at me. “This is how I became a eunuch, at age 11, ‘boiled and mashed,’ as they say.”

I did not laugh at this. But I suddenly wondered and asked, “Are you happy, as a eunuch? Or do you wish you could be a man?”

 

“Ah, your mind is loose, a good sign that melancholia is not your issue. As for happiness, yes, I am quite happy. Do I wish I were a man? Mostly no, but sometimes yes. The answer is not simple.”

 

Herulian paused for a moment, considering whether he should say something, then said it: “But sometimes I want to have sex with a woman badly, and it is a most pleasurable and secret thought, though it usually passes in a few moments. It is exciting to serve a woman so closely as her physician – feeling for her temperature under her arm, her breast almost in my hand – and want to take her like a man. All the while she’s thinking of me as a kind of other woman.”

He cocked his head to me. “Now you share a secret of mine, Gaius Galen. Keep it to yourself, please.”