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Eunuchs in the East, Men in the West? 147 Eunuchs in the East, Men in the West? 147 Chapter 8 Eunuchs in the East, Men in the West? Dis/unity, Gender and Orientalism in the Fourth Century Shaun Tougher Introduction In the narrative of relations between East and West in the Roman Empire in the fourth century AD, the tensions between the eastern and western imperial courts at the end of the century loom large. The decision of Theodosius I to “split” the empire between his young sons Arcadius and Honorius (the teenage Arcadius in the east and the ten-year-old Honorius in the west) ushered in a period of intense hostility and competition between the courts, famously fo- cused on the figure of Stilicho.1 Stilicho, half-Vandal general and son-in-law of Theodosius I (Stilicho was married to Serena, Theodosius’ niece and adopted daughter), had been left as guardian of Honorius, but claimed guardianship of Arcadius too and concomitant authority over the east. In the political manoeu- vrings which followed the death of Theodosius I in 395, Stilicho was branded a public enemy by the eastern court. In the war of words between east and west a key figure was the (probably Alexandrian) poet Claudian, who acted as a ‘pro- pagandist’ (through panegyric and invective) for the western court, or rather Stilicho. Famously, Claudian wrote invectives on leading officials at the eastern court, namely Rufinus the praetorian prefect and Eutropius, the grand cham- berlain (praepositus sacri cubiculi), who was a eunuch. It is Claudian’s two at- tacks on Eutropius that are the inspiration and central focus of this paper which will examine the significance of the figure of the eunuch for the topic of the end of unity between east and west in the Roman Empire. Eunuchs became an institutional feature of the imperial court in the late Roman period.2 This phenomenon was especially associated with the east, an 1 For recent treatment of Stilicho see Natalie Kampen, Family Fictions in Roman Art (Cambridge, Eng., 2009), pp. 123–38. 2 See for instance Keith Hopkins, “Eunuchs in Politics in the Later Roman Empire,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 189 (1963), 62–80, slightly revised in his Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, Eng., 1978), pp. 172–96; Peter Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven und Freigelassene in der griechisch-römischen Antike (Stuttgart, 1980), pp. 130–76; and Shaun Tougher, The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society (London and New York, 2008), pp. 36–53. © Shaun Tougher, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004291935_010 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License. Shaun Tougher - 9789004291935 Downloaded from Brill.com12/10/2020 07:11:36AM via free access 148 Tougher association Claudian dwells on in his invectives on Eutropius. I will examine how Claudian presents Eutropius and how he utilises the eunuch to emphasise the contrast between east and west. In Greek and Roman writing there was a long history of deploying the figure of the eunuch (whose gender, as a castrat- ed male, was ambiguous) as a marker and symbol of the feminine and effemi- nate east as opposed to the ‘normal’ masculine west. I will consider the roots of such orientalist discourse, but also consider its validity. I will ask, to what ex- tent were court eunuchs an eastern phenomenon, and whether we see an end to unity between east and west in the matter of the nature of the imperial courts in relation to the use of eunuchs. I will argue that the situation is more complicated than the simple contrast Claudian creates, and that continuity of practice across both parts of the empire persisted beyond the fourth century. The orientalist discourse needs to be recognised, addressed and corrected, for modern historians themselves can compound its potency; in his inaugural lec- ture, on Claudian, Oswald Dilke summed up parts of the invectives on Eutro- pius as follows: The so-called patrician has been nothing but a pander and a punkah- walla, who fanned an empress with peacock’s feathers … Statues of this Pooh-Bah appear all over Constantinople, as judge, as consul, even as general, one of them dominating the senate-house.3 He adds later orientalist imagery to an already heady mix. Eunuchs were not just an eastern phenomenon, though it was easy to brand them as such. In real- ity they were a defining feature of Roman culture. Claudian and Eutropius The figures of Claudian and Eutropius, and their role in the history of the Ro- man Empire at the end of the fourth century, are well known. Claudian was the subject of a major monograph by Alan Cameron published in 1970.4 More re- cently, he has received scrutiny from Catherine Ware in her Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition.5 The significance of the poet for court politics and 3 Oswald Ashton Wentworth Dilke, Claudian: Poet of Declining Empire and Morals; An Inaugural Lecture (Leeds, 1969), p. 14. 4 Alan Cameron, Claudian. Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford, 1970). 5 Catherine Ware, Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition (Cambridge, Eng., 2012). For other recent work on Claudian see for instance Marie-France Guipponi-Gineste, Claudien. Poète du monde à la cour d’Occident (Paris, 2010); Florence Garambois-Vasquez, Les invectices de Claudian. Une poétique de la violence (Brussels, 2007). Shaun Tougher - 9789004291935 Downloaded from Brill.com12/10/2020 07:11:36AM via free access Eunuchs in the East, Men in the West? 149 culture of the late fourth and early fifth centuries is not in doubt, given his prolific output of panegyric and invective; he was also celebrated in his own day, a statue of him being erected in Rome in the Forum of Trajan, in the names of Arcadius and Honorius.6 As for Eutropius, he was a product of the trade in eunuch slaves and rose to become the leading minister of Arcadius, though he had served Theodosius I too (undertaking for him a mission to Egypt).7 He was Arcadius’ grand cham- berlain, and replaced Rufinus as the emperor’s right hand man in 395. The po- litical importance of the eunuch – and Stilicho – is strikingly conveyed by a fragment of the lost history of their contemporary Eunapius, which reflects on the difficulty of acquiring good information about affairs in the west in “the time of Eutropius”. Eunapius observes: If any officials or soldiers had access to information on political activity, they related it as they wished, biased by friendship or hostility or a desire to please someone. And if you brought together three or four of them with conflicting versions as witnesses, there would be a great argument which would proceed from passionate and heated interjections to a pitched battle. They would say, ‘Where did you get this from?’ ‘Where did Stilicho see you?’ ‘Would you have seen the eunuch?’ so that it was quite a task to sort out the tangle.8 Eutropius’ pre-eminence is also reflected by the number of statues and other images of him that were produced, and by his appointment as consul for 399.9 The usefulness of Eutropius as an example of the powerful court eunuchs who characterise later Roman and Byzantine history means that he has featured heavily in modern discussions of the phenomenon, such as studies by James Dunlap and Helga Scholten.10 6 CIL VI.1710. The inscription identifies Claudian as a vir clarissimus, tribune and notary. 7 For Eutropius see for instance PLRE 2, Eutropius 1, pp. 440–44; James E. Dunlap, “The Office of the Grand Chamberlain in the Later Roman and Byzantine Empires,” in Two Studies in Later Roman and Byzantine Administration (New York and London, 1924), pp. 161–324, esp. pp. 272–84. 8 Eunapius, History, Fragment 66.2, trans. Roger Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising His- torians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus, 2 (Liver- pool, 1983), p. 103. 9 For statues and images of Eutropius see Claudian, In Eutropium 2.72–77, and Codex Theo- dosianus 9.40.17. 10 Dunlap, “Grand Chamberlain”; Helga Scholten, Der Eunuch in Kaisernähe: zur politischen und sozialen Bedeutung des praepositus sacri cubiculi im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert n. Chr. (Frankfurt, 1995). Shaun Tougher - 9789004291935 Downloaded from Brill.com12/10/2020 07:11:36AM via free access 150 Tougher The duo of Claudian and Eutropius are nicely brought together, of course, because Claudian wrote two invectives on the eunuch.11 The first was elicited by the designation of Eutropius as consul for 399, and the second completed following the eunuch’s sudden fall and exile to Cyprus in the same year. These texts are certainly not neglected by historians and classicists for they reveal much about the career of Eutropius, concepts of the gender identity of eu- nuchs, and the political and literary context of the time; they are, for instance, the focus of Jacqueline Long’s wonderfully subtitled Claudian’s In Eutropium. Or, How, When, and Why to Slander a Eunuch (Chapel Hill and London, 1996).12 Such is the importance of these texts for East-West relations and concepts that they deserve a place in this volume. In his invectives on Eutropius Claudian dwells heavily on the gender iden- tity of the eunuch, presenting him in a range of guises: as woman, as man, and as other – a third gender.13 The image of Eutropius as a woman appears at the very start of the first invective, Claudian exclaiming “O shame to heaven and earth! Our cities behold an old woman (anus) decked in a consul’s robe who gives a woman’s name to the year” (1.9–10), and he begs “at least give us a man (virum)” (1.29).14 Eutropius’ military role provides Claudian with ammunition for his assault.
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