eunuchs

From: markmohrfield_at_...
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:02:02 -0000


>>In the case of the eunuchs who became government officials (quite
high-ranking ones sometimes), the thinking was that if they had no offsping
to pass their wealth on to, there would be less temptation for them to extort money out of the government. There would be no reason for them to
build a powerbase, as they couldn't pass it on to anyone. The result was a
loyal, relatively efficient bureaucracy.

The system worked quite well and for long periods the Byzantine government
was dominated by eunuchs.<<

I dug out the textbook used in the Asian history course I took a long time ago, Conrad Shirokauer's "A Brief History of Chinese And Japanese Civilizations". According to it, during the Later Han dynasty " Eunuchs were deliberately chosen from insignificant, often aboriginal families to ensure that they would have no outside loyalties but would be solely dependent on imperial favor. This dependency commended them to strong-willed rulers like the founder of the Later Han; his weaker successors, however, sometimes became the instruments rather than the masters of the eunuchs. Earlier, in the Qin and during the last half of the century of the Former Han, individual eunuchs had become powerful, but never before had eunuchs as a group attained the prominence they achieved in the second century. They were even granted the right to perpetuate their power by adopting "sons" to create ersatz families."

                                            Mark Mohrfield

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