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Breaking Down Barriers: Eunuchs in Italy and North Africa, 400–620

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Breaking Down Barriers: Eunuchs in Italy and North Africa, 400–620 CHAPTER 2 Breaking Down Barriers: Eunuchs in Italy and North Africa, 400–620 Michael Edward Stewart In the second decade of the 7th century, Byzantine rule in Italy was in peril. The imperial government in Constantinople found itself in the midst of a final fight for survival with its long-time nemesis from the East, the Persian empire. Taking advantage of this distraction, in 615, parts of northern and southern Italy rebelled against their Byzantine overlords. In Ravenna, a group of Lombards and native Italians murdered the Byzantine exarch and a number of impe- rial officials in Ravenna, while in Naples, a local strongman, John of Compsa, established himself as the city’s independent ruler. Though embroiled in the fight with Persia, in the spring of 616, the emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) sent the eunuch chamberlain Eleutherius to exact revenge and restore order. In this task, the eunuch was largely successful.1 According to a near con- temporary Italian source, “the patricius and cubicularius Eleutherius came to Ravenna and killed all those who had been implicated in the death of exarch John and the judges of the State.” The exarch then turned his army south. After cordially consulting with Pope Deusdedit in Rome, Eleutherius entered Naples, and “fought his way against the usurper and killed the upstart and many oth- ers with him”.2 His further attack against the Lombards, however, failed, forc- ing the exarch to pay a yearly tribute of 500 pounds of gold to the Lombards. Though the precise details remain murky, Eleutherius’ successes seemed to have gone to his head, and in 619, he rebelled against Heraclius, and named himself western emperor. A later chronicle from northern Italy declared, “And then, when he returned with victory, he scorned the patriciate with the fasces; 1 The extant sources for Eleutherius’ career are all western: Auctarii Havniensis Extrema (ch. 25), published around 625, provides the most detailed account of Eleutherius. Cf. LP (c. 640); Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum (c. 790); Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, ch. 106 (c. 830s-840s). 2 LP, Deusdedit ch. 2: Eodem tempore veniens Eleutherius patricius et cubicularius Ravenna et occidit omnes qui in nece Joannis exarchi et judicibus reipublicae fuerant mixti. Hic venit Roma susceptus est a sanctissimo Deusdedit papa optime; qui egressus de Roma venit Neapolim qui tenebatur a Joanne Compsino [Campanino] intarta. Qui pugnando Eleutherius patricius ingressus est Neapolim et interfecit tyrannum. (LP 1:319). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349070_004 34 Stewart although he was a eunuch he took up the ruling of the empire.”3 A certain John—perhaps the archbishop of Ravenna—advised Eleutherius to depart Ravenna and hasten to Rome, since “this was where the throne of empire re- sided [ubi imperii solium maneret]”.4 His reign, if we can call it that, did not last long; on the way to Rome, the imperial troops killed Eleutherius in the camp of the Lucceoli, and “his head, placed in a bag, was brought to the em- peror in Constantinople.”5 That an exarch might take advantage of turmoil in Constantinople to seek imperial office should cause little wonder. Granted civilian and military powers, exarchs were prone to rebellion in the 7th century.6 Heraclius’ rise to the purple came in the aftermath of a rebellion by his father (also named Heraclius)—the long-serving exarch of North Africa—against the emperor Phocas (r. 602–610) in 608.7 Some might consider a eunuch naming himself as a Roman emperor more surprising, since most modern literature suggests that castration or indeed most types of mutilation generally barred one from imperial office.8 Even allowing for embellishment, then, it is significant that our early medieval western sources find it possible that a eunuch could aspire to such heights. Eleutherius, indeed, was not the only eunuch-exarch to seek imperial power. In 649, another Byzantine cubicularius, and likely eunuch, Olympius, headed to Italy to settle a dispute.9 He too would eventually rebel and be proclaimed emperor, this time with the help of the pope he had been sent to arrest. Such examples vividly expose the reality that eunuchs cut across any neat rubrics we might wish to impose on them. These usurpations would also seem to af- firm the scholarly consensus that a lessoning of hostility towards eunuchs had 3 Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis (trans. Deliyannis 2004, 224). 4 Auctarii Havniensis Extrema 25, MGH AA 9, 339, quoted in Deliyannis 2010, 391, n. 11. 5 Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, Iohannes IV (trans. Deliyannis 2004, 225). The full text reads: Post haec autem invasa est Neapolis a Iohanne, et non post dies aliquos Eleutherius postquam expulit, interfecit eum. Et dum cum uictoria reuerteretur, patriciatus dedigna- tus est fascibus, quamuis eunuchus fuisset, imperii iura suscepit. Qui egressus de Rauenna Romam velet ire, a militibus in castro Lucceolis gladio peremptus est; cuius caput, conditum sacco, Constantinopolim imperatori delatum est. (Deliyannis 2006, 277.80–85). Cf. Paul the Deacon, Origo gentis Langobardorum 4.34. 6 Moorhead 2014, 158. 7 On Heraclius’ rebellion, see Kaegi 2003, 36. For the revolt of the African exarch Gregory in 647, see Theophanes, Chron. AM 6138. 8 E. g., Longworth 1997, 321; Cameron 2004, 169; Harris 2006, 16; Herrin 2013, 268. 9 Olympius’ status as a eunuch is not certain. Shaun Tougher posits (Tougher 2008, 161) that since he was previously a cubicularius, it is probable that he was a eunuch..
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