more castration won’t end castration culture

Worse than a slave-trader, the Greek man Panionios of Chios about 2500 years ago made his living by purchasing beautiful young men and castrating them. He then sold the castrated, enslaved men in Sardis and Ephesus to Persians seeking eunuchs. That’s especially horrific trafficking in enslaved men.

Panionios purchased and castrated Hermotimos of Pedasa. He then sold him to the Persians in the Lydian capital Sardis. The Median general Harpagus had conquered Pedasa and taken Hermotimos captive. Hermotimos perhaps temporarily regarded himself as relatively fortunate. In ancient war, victors commonly killed all the men and took only women and children as captives.[1]

Hermotimos’s native Pedasa was just inland of the Anatolian city Halicarnassus. Halicarnassus was associated with vigorous promotion of gender equality. Adopting the gender wisdom of the great Lydian king Croesus, the woman-hero Artemisia took up the stressful job of ruling Halicarnassus. She herself fought for the Persians, guilefully feigning allegiance to the Greeks when advantageous.[2] She scarcely avoided death amid massive numbers of men killed in the colossal Persian loss at the Battle of Salamis. Amid such progress toward gender equality, Hermotimos might have hoped as a captive man to become the royal husband of a rich, powerful ruling woman.[3] In stark contrast to that hope, he was castrated and sold as a eunuch slave.

Given as a gift to Xerxes, ruler of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Hermotimos rose to became Xerxes’s favorite eunuch. Hermotimos served as guardian of some of Xerxes’s sons. He also traveled widely on business and became wealthy. Hermotimos nonetheless lacked a position reproductively equal to that of wife of a rich, ruling warrior man.

One day on business travel in Atarneus, a city that Cyrus the Great gave to the Chians, Hermotimos encountered again Panionios of Chios. Hermotimos held a long, friendly conversation with him. He thanked Panionios for the good fortune he had brought him. Hermotimos in feigned gratitude offered to make Panionios equally prosperous if Panionios would bring all of his family to settle in Atarneus.[4] Panionios gladly accepted this offer.

When Panionios brought his family to Atarneus, Hermotimos took them to his house. Then Hermotimos addressed Panionios amid his family:

You, of all humans up to this time, you who have made a livelihood from the most impious deeds, tell me, what evil did I — myself or any of my ancestors — do to you or yours that you would make me into nothing instead of a man? You thought that the gods would not see your practice, but they know justice, and for your impious deeds their law has brought you into my hands. Now you cannot find fault with the fullness of justice that I will execute upon you.

{ Ὦ πάντων ἀνδρῶν ἤδη μάλιστα ἀπ᾿ ἔργων ἀνοσιωτάτων τὸν βίον κτησάμενε, τί σε ἐγὼ κακὸν ἢ αὐτὸς ἢ τῶν ἐμῶν τίς σε προγόνων ἐργάσατο, ἢ σὲ ἢ τῶν σῶν τινα, ὅτι με ἀντ᾿ ἀνδρὸς ἐποίησας τὸ μηδὲν εἶναι; ἐδόκεές τε θεοὺς λήσειν οἷα ἐμηχανῶ τότε· οἵ σε ποιήσαντα ἀνόσια, νόμῳ δικαίῳ χρεώμενοι, ὑπήγαγον ἐς χεῖρας τὰς ἐμάς, ὥστε σε μὴ μέμψασθαι τὴν ἀπ᾿ ἐμέο τοι ἐσομένην δίκην. }[5]

Hermotimos then brought Panionios’s four sons to him and compelled him to castrate each of them. After that, Hermotimos compelled the sons to castrate their father.[6] Hermotimos thus destroyed the reproductive potential of Panionios and his sons. For Panionios, castration ended his male line.

In short, furious at the castration Panionios had inflicted upon him, Hermotimos inflicted more castration upon Panionios and his sons. Such vengeance doesn’t contribute to ending castration culture. It perpetuates castration culture. More castration won’t end castration culture.

Women have heroically saved beloved men from castration. Women have even dared to dupe the devil to prevent their beloved man from being castrated. But just as for violence against men, women and men are complicit in the systemic perpetuation of castration culture.[7] Systemic change isn’t difficult to imagine for those who have preserved their imagination. Women and men must come together lovingly to end castration culture.

* * * * *

Read more:

• castration: sexual violence against men historically entrenched
• selfless eunuchs followed Panthea’s suicide at Abradatas’s death
• Greek women warriors danced Pyrrhic victory for gender equality

Notes:

[1] The only surviving account of Hermotimos (Hermotimus) of Pedasa and Panionios (Panionius) of Chios is Herodotus, Histories, 8.104-6. Scholars tend to treat violence against men as normal and have shown little concern for castration and other forms of sexual violence against men. With regard to the story of Hermotimos of Pedas and Panionios of Chios, a learned classicist who has studied it extensively observed, “I have found very little written about it.” Hornblower (2003) p. 39.

Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus. That coastal city of Anatolia is very close to Pedasa. Herodotus was thus well-positioned to hear about this horrific story. For speculation on Herodotus’s source for this story, Hornblower (2003) pp. 55-7.

Trafficking in boys and young men for castration was a well-recognized practice. Babylonia and the rest of Assyria paid to the Persian king Darius the Great an annual tribute of 1,000 silver talents and 500 boys to be castrated and serve as eunuchs. Herodotus, Histories 3.92. Boys sent to Darius as tribute by the Ethiopians and the Colchians probably were similarly castrated to serve as eunuchs. Herodotus, Histories 3.97.

In the second half of the sixth century, Chios and other Ionian cities were subjected to Persian rule. In 494 BGC, the Persians crushed a revolt of the Ioninan cities and castrated many boys:

After the Persians had completed their conquest of the Ionian cities, they picked out the most handsome boys and castrated them, making them eunuchs instead of males with testicles. And they dragged off the most beautiful of the young women to the king.

{ ὡς γὰρ δὴ ἐπεκράτησαν τῶν πολίων, παῖδάς τε τοὺς εὐειδεστάτους ἐκλεγόμενοι ἐξέταμνον καὶ ἐποίευν ἀντὶ εἶναι ἐνόρχιας εὐνούχους καὶ παρθένους τὰς καλλιστευούσας ἀνασπάστους παρὰ βασιλέα· }

Herodotus, Histories 6.32, ancient Greek text from Godley (1920), English translation (modified slightly) from Strassler & Thomas (2007). The Persians had threatened to castrate the sons and seize the daughters of any Ionian men who rebelled. Herodotus, Histories 6.9.

The Corinthian leader Periander similarly sought to castrate the sons of the leading men of Corcyra. The heroic Samians saved the boys by giving them refuge in a temple of Artemis and having young men and woman dance until the castration threat was dispelled. Herodotus, Histories 3.48.

On the Medes conquering Pedasa, Herodotus, Histories 1.175. On killing all the men and taking only women and children as captives, see, e.g. Deuteronomy 20:13-4; Numbers 31:7, 17-8; 1 Kings 11:15.

[2] The gender positions of men and women have commonly been misunderstood throughout history. Herodotus underscored such misunderstanding with respect to Artemisia through recounting one of her actions in the Battle of Salamis.

To escape from a pursuing Athenian ship in the Battle of Salamis, Artemisia directed her ship to charge a ship of men from Calydna / Calynda {Κάλυνδα} fighting on behalf of Xerxes. Artemisia’s ship sunk the Calyndian ship. All the men aboard it were killed. The Athenian ship then assumed that Artemisia’s ship was fighting for the Greeks and didn’t pursue it further. Herodotus, Histories 8.87.

Xerxes misinterpreted Artemisia’s action as having sunk an enemy (Greek) ship. Praising her misunderstood action, he declared: “My men have become women, and my women men {Οἱ μὲν ἄνδρες γεγόνασί μοι γυναῖκες, αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες ἄνδρες}.” Herodotus, Histories 8.88, ancient Greek text and English translation from Godley (1920). In reality, most men wouldn’t have done what Artemisia did. Moreover, the Persian men being killed in the Battle of Salamis weren’t assuming the position of women with regard to violent death.

Nonetheless, Herodotus seems to have helped to make Artemisia famous. A catalog of eminent women probably written about 50 BGC records:

Artemisia, the Halicarnassian, the daughter of Lygdamis, as Herodotus says. She, due to her personal bravery, went to war together with the Persian, when she ruled the Halicarnassians, Coans, and Nisurians. The Persian, he says, admiring her deeds and good sense, cried aloud that his women had become men and his men women. Hence after the naval battle, he sent Artemisia a suit of armor and the Phoenician commanders distaffs and spindles, honoring her courage with the tokens of bravery and reproving their weakness by means of these womanly pursuits.

{ Ἀρτεμισία, Ἁλικαρνασσίς , θυγάτηρ Λυγδάμιος, ὥς φησιν Ἡρόδοτος. Αὕτη διὰ τὴν ἰδίαν ἀνδρείαν ἐπεστράτευσε τῷ Πέρσῃ, ἄρχουσα Ἁλικαρνασσέων , Κώων, Νισυρίων . Ταύτης, φησί, τὰ ἔργα καὶ τὰς γνώμας ὁ Πέρσης θαυμάζων ἀνέκραγεν, ὡς αἱ γυναῖκες μὲν αὐτῷ ἄνδρες, οἱ δὲ ἄνδρες γυναῖκες αὐτῷ γεγόνασιν. Ὅθεν καὶ μετὰ τὴν ναυμαχίαν τῇ μὲν Ἀρτεμισίᾳ πανοπλίαν ἔπεμψε, τοῖς δὲ τῶν Φοινίκων στρατηγοῖς ἠλακάτας καὶ ἀτράκτους, τῆς μὲν τιμῶν τὴν ἀρετὴν τοῖς τῆς ἀνδρίας ἐπισήμοις, τῶν δὲ ἐξελέγχων τὴν μαλακίαν τοῖς τῶν γυναικῶν ἐπιτηδεύμασιν. }

Treatise on women eminent in war {Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello} / Women wise and brave in matters of war {Γυναῖκες ἐν πολεμικοῖς συνεταὶ καὶ ἀνδρεῖαι} 13, ancient Greek text and English translation from Gera (1997) p. 10.

Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello was “probably compiled at the very earliest at the end of the second century or the beginning of the first century BC.” Gera (1997) pp. 29-30. Gera speculates that its author might have been the learned woman Pamphile of Epidaurus in the first century GC. Id. pp. 60-1. That’s unlikely, given that Tractatus de mulieribus entry for Dido / Theiosso {Θειοσσώ} / Elissa {Ἔλισσα} (section 6) makes no mention of Virgil’s Aeneid on Dido, as Gera elsewhere recognizes. Id. p. 126. The Aeneid was widely distributed shortly after 19 BGC. Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello is structurally similar to the Greek story-collection Sufferings in Love {Ἐρωτικὰ Παθήματα} that Parthenius of Nicaea wrote between 52 and 26 BGC.

[3] Pedasa was further associated with eminent women taking up men’s difficult position:

Among the Pedasians, this happens: whenever some difficulty is about to befall those who dwell around their city, then within a certain time the priestess of Athena grows a long beard. This has already happened twice.

{ ἐν δὲ τοῖσι Πηδάσοισι τουτέοισι τοιόνδε συμφέρεται πρῆγμα γίνεσθαι· ἐπεὰν τοῖσι ἀμφικτυόσι πᾶσι τοῖσι ἀμφὶ ταύτης οἰκέουσι τῆς πόλιος μέλλῃ τι ἐντὸς χρόνου ἔσεσθαι χαλεπόν, τότε ἡ ἱερείη αὐτόθι τῆς Ἀθηναίης φύει πώγωνα μέγαν. τοῦτο δέ σφι δὶς ἤδη ἐγένετο. }

Herodotus, Histories 8.104, ancient Greek text from Godley (1920), my English translation, benefiting from that of id. and that of Strassler & Thomas (2007). For a nearly identical account, Histories 1.175. Many scholars have doubted the authenticity of the former passage. For arguments in favor of its authenticity, Hornblower (2003) p. 43, which ironically interprets the passage gender-conventionally.

[4] Chios, Sardis, Ephesus, Pedasa, Halicarnassus, and Atarneus are all in Anatolia of present-day Turkey. For a map showing these locations, Strassler & Thomas (2007) p. 646, Map 8.107.

[5] Herodotus, Histories 8.106, ancient Greek text from Godley (1920), my English translation, benefiting from that of id. and that of Strassler & Thomas (2007).

[6] Herodotus wrote:

After he had cast these reproaches at him, he had Panionios’s sons — all four of them — brought before them. Then he compelled Panionios to cut off the genitals of his sons. Because he was forced, he did it. When he had finished, his sons were forced to cut off his. So it was that vengeance came to Panionios at the hands of Hermotimos.

{ ὡς δέ οἱ ταῦτα ὠνείδισε, ἀχθέντων τῶν παίδων ἐς ὄψιν ἠναγκάζετο ὁ Πανιώνιος τῶν ἑωυτοῦ παίδων τεσσέρων ἐόντων τὰ αἰδοῖα ἀποτάμνειν, ἀναγκαζόμενος δὲ ἐποίεε ταῦτα· αὐτοῦ τε, ὡς ταῦτα ἐργάσατο, οἱ παῖδες ἀναγκαζόμενοι ἀπέταμνον. Πανιώνιον μέν νυν οὕτω περιῆλθε ἥ τε τίσις καὶ Ἑρμότιμος. }

Histories 8.106, ancient Greek text from Godley (1920), English translation (modified) from Strassler & Thomas (2007). The Greek here used for castration is “to cut off the genitals {τὰ αἰδοῖα ἀποτάμνειν}.” When referring to Panionios castrating young men, Herodotus used for castrate the verb “to cut out {ἐκτέμνω}.” Hornblower suggests that the former implies removal of the penis and testicles, while the later implies removal of only the testicles. Hornblower (2003) pp. 41-3. That interpretation reverses the interpretation that Hornblower cites from Enoch Powell’s commentary. Id. p. 43. In commenting on Hornblower’s paper in his volume review, Stewart Flory also wrongly reverses Hornblower’s philological interpretation.

On castration in Herodotus more generally, Hart (2018) pp. 85-90. Classics scholars have shown little gendered concern about the despicable sexual violence systemically inflicted upon men and boys.

[7] Some ancient literature even credits women with inventing castration. Hellanicus of Mytilene / Hellanicus of Lesbos, a Greek historian / logographer {λογογράφος} who was Herodotus’s contemporary, reported about the eminent, highly privileged Achaemenid woman Atossa. She was the daughter of Cyrus the Great, the wife of Darius the Great, and the mother of Xerxes the Great. An ancient catalog of eminent women states:

Atossa: Hellanicus says that she was raised as a male by her father Ariaspes and inherited his kingdom. Hiding the mentality of women, she was the first to wear a tiara, the first to wear pants, as well as the first to invent the use of eunuchs and to make her replies in writing. She ruled many tribes and was very warlike and brave in every deed.

{ Ἄτοσσα. Ταύτην φησὶν Ἑλλάνικος ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς Ἀριάσπου ὡς ἄρρενα τραφεῖσαν διαδέξασθαι τὴν βασιλείαν. Κρύβουσαν δὲ τὴν τῶν γυναίων ἐπίνοιαν, τιάραν πρώτην φορέσαι, πρώτην δὲ καὶ ἀναξυρίδας καὶ τὴν τῶν εὐνούχων ὑπουργίαν εὑρεῖν καὶ διὰ βίβλων τὰς ἀποκρίσεις ποιεῖσθαι. Πολλὰ δὲ ὑποτάξασα ἔθνη πολεμικωτάτη καὶ ἀνδρειοτάτη ἐν παντὶ ἔργῳ ἐγένετο. }

Treatise on women eminent in war {Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello} / Women wise and brave in matters of war {Γυναῖκες ἐν πολεμικοῖς συνεταὶ καὶ ἀνδρεῖαι} 7 (BNJ 687a F7a / FGrHist 4 F 1a 178a), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from Gera (1997) p. 8. Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello is a short treatise probably written about 50 BGC by an anonymous author. For a freely available ancient Greek text, Westermann (1839) p. 215. For a Turkish translation freely available online, Erten (2016).

Other ancient authors credit the Assyrian queen Semiramis with being the first to make males into eunuchs. Writing in the 380s GC with personal knowledge about circumstances in the Roman Empire under the reign of Constantius Gallus (351 to 354 GC), the historian Ammianus Marcellinus described the retinue of leading Roman households:

All the weavers march close to the front of the carriage. Next to these come the blackened servants of the kitchen, then all the rest of the slaves without distinction, accompanied by the idle plebeians of the neighborhood. Finally comes the throng of eunuchs, beginning with the old men and ending with the boys, sallow and disfigured by the distorted form of their genital features. Wherever anyone goes, beholding these troops of mutilated men, he would curse the memory of that Queen Semiramis of old. She was the first of all to castrate males, thus doing violence, as it were, to Nature and wresting Nature from her intended course, since she at the very beginning of life, through the primitive founts of the seed, by a kind of secret law, shows the ways to propagate posterity.

{ iuxta vehiculi frontem omne textrinum incedit: huic atratum coquinae iungitur ministerium, dein totum promisce servitium, cum otiosis plebeis de vicinitate coniunctis; postrema multitudo spadonum a senibus in pueros desinens, obluridi distortaque lineamentorum compage deformes, ut quaqua incesserit quisquam, cernens mutilorum hominum agmina, detestetur memoriam Samiramidis reginae illius veteris, quae teneros mares castravit omnium prima, velut vim iniectans naturae, eandemque ab instituto cursu retorquens, quae inter ipsa oriundi crepundia, per primigenios seminis fontes, tacita quodam modo lege vias propagandae posteritatis ostendit. }

Ammianus Marcellinus, History / Matters performed from the end of Cornelius Tacitus’s History {Res Gestae a fine Corneli Taciti} 14.6.17, Latin text and English translation (modified slightly) from Rolfe (1950). Semiramis and Atossa, along with the Babylonian queen Nitocris that Herodotus records, are often conflated. Gera (1997) pp. 66, 75, 141-2.

Writing about 400 GC and disparaging the eunuch emperor Eutropius, the Roman poet Claudian / Claudius Claudianus credited either Semiramis or the Parthians for being the first to make males into eunuchs:

What noble deed did a eunuch ever do?
What wars did such fight, what cities did one found?
Moreover, nature created woman, the former,
but the human hand, the latter. Whether from fear
of being betrayed by her shrill woman’s voice or by her hairless cheeks,
that clever Semiramis, to disguise her sex from the Assyrians,
first surrounded herself with beings like her, or the Parthians employed
the knife to stop the growth of the first down of manhood,
lengthening the years of youthful charm. By this artifice,
they forced boys to serve their lusts.

{ … quid nobile gessit
eunuchus? quae bella tulit? quas condidit urbes?
illas praeterea rerum natura creavit,
hos fecere manus: seu prima Semiramis astu
Assyriis mentita virum, ne vocis acutae
mollities levesve genae se prodere possent,
hos sibi coniunxit similes; seu Parthica ferro
luxuries vetuit nasci lanuginis umbram
servatoque diu puerili flore coegit
arte retardatam Veneri servire iuventam. }

Claudius Claudianus, Against Eutropius {In Eutropium} 1.336-45, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Platnauer (1922).

[images] (1) Fighting for Xerxes the Great, Artemisia I of Caria shoots arrows at the Greek fleet in the Battle of Salamis. Artemisia is circled in red (editorial). Painting of the Battle of Salamis by Wilhelm von Kaulbach in 1868. Preserved in the Maximilianeum (Landtag of Bavaria) in Munich, Germany. Source image via Wikimedia Commons.

(2) Semiramis, Queen of Assyria, sits on her throne holding a sword while men soldiers stand behind her. From a manuscript of About famous and noble women {Des cleres et nobles femmes}, an anonymous French translation of Boccacio’s About famous women {De mulieribus claris}. Made about 1410. Painting from folio 8v of British Library, Royal Ms. 20 C V. Source image via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Erten, Emre, trans. into Turkish. 2016. “Savaş Konularında Zeki ve Cesur Kadınlar.” Libri. 2: 96-106.

Gera, Deborah. 1997. Warrior Women: The Anonymous Tractatus De Mulieribus. Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill. Review by Susan Deacy and by Barton C. Hacker.

Godley, A. D., ed. and trans. 1920. Herodotus. The Persian Wars. Loeb Classical Library 117-120. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hart, Rachel. 2018. More than Meets the Eye: Autopsy and Physicality in Herodotus and Ctesias. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Hornblower, Simon. 2003. “Panionios of Chios and Hermotimos of Pedasa.” Chapter 3 (pp. 37-57) in Peter Derow and Robert Parker, eds. Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Volume review by Stewart Flory.

Platnauer, Maurice, trans. 1922. Claudian. Panegyric on Probinus and Olybrius. Against Rufinus 1 and 2. War against Gildo. Against Eutropius 1 and 2. Fescennine Verses on the Marriage of Honorius. Epithalamium of Honorius and Maria. Panegyrics on the Third and Fourth Consulships of Honorius. Panegyric on the Consulship of Manlius. On Stilicho’s Consulship 1. Loeb Classical Library 135. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rolfe, John C., ed. and trans. 1950. Ammianus Marcellinus. History. Volume I: Books 14-19. Loeb Classical Library 300. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Strassler, Robert B. and Rosalind Thomas, trans. 2007. The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. New York: Pantheon Books.

​Westermann, Anton, ed. 1839. Antigonus, Apollonius, Phlegon, Michael Psellus, and Aristotle. Paradoxographoi [Romanized]. Scriptores Rerum Mirabilium Graeci. Insunt (Aristotelis) Mirabiles Auscultationes; Antigoni, Apollonii, Phlegontis Historiae Mirabiles, Michaelis Pselli Lectiones Mirabiles, Reliquorum Eiusdem Generis Scriptorum Deperditorum Fragmenta . Accedunt Phlegontis Macrobii et Olympiadum Reliquiae et Anonymi Tractus de Mulieribus, Etc. Londini: sumptum fecit G. Westermann; apud Black et Armstrong.