“Hermotimus, however, was not in every respect unfortunate, for he went to Sardis, along with other presents for the king, and in process of time was the most esteemed by Xerxes of all his eunuchs.
“When the king was preparing to march his Persian army against Athens, Hermotimus was at Sardis, having gone down at that time, upon some business or other, to the Mysian territory which the Chians possess, and is called Atarneus, he there met with Panionius. Having recognized him, he addressed many friendly words to him, first recounting the many advantages he had acquired by this means, and secondly, promising him how many favors he would confer upon him in requital, if he would bring his family and settle there; so that Panionius joyfully accepted the proposal and brought his wife and children. But when Hermotimus got him with his whole family into his power, he addressed him as follows:
“‘O thou, who, of all mankind, hast gained thy living by the most infamous acts, what harm had either I, or any of mine, done to thee, or any of thine, that of a man thou hast made me nothing?
“‘Thou didst imagine, surely, that thy machinations would pass unnoticed by the Gods, who, following righteous laws, have enticed thee, who hath committed unholy deeds, into my hands, so that thou canst not complain of the punishment I shall inflict upon thee.’
“When he had thus upbraided him, his sons being brought into his presence, Panionius was compelled to castrate his own sons, who were four in number; and, being compelled, he did it; and after he had finished it, his sons, being compelled, castrated him. Thus did vengeance and Hermotimus overtake Panionius.” Herodotus, viii, ch. 105-6.
Mention of the Galli, the emasculated priests of Cybebe should be made. Emasculation was a necessary first condition of service in her worship. (Catullus, Attys.) The Latin literature of the silver and bronze ages contains many references to castration. Juvenal and Martial have lavished bitter scorn upon this form of degradation, and Suetonius and Statius inform us that Domitian prohibited the practice, but it is in the “Amoures” attributed to Lucian that we find a passage so closely akin to the one forming a basis of this note, that it is inserted in extenso:
“Some pushed their cruelty so far as to outrage Nature with the sacrilegious knife, and, after depriving men of their virility, found in them the height of pleasure. These miserable and unhappy creatures, that they may the longer serve the purposes of boys, are stunted in their manhood, and remain a doubtful riddle of a double sex, neither preserving that boyhood in which they were born, nor possessing that manhood which should be theirs. The bloom of their youth withers away in a premature old age: while yet boys, they suddenly become old, without any interval of manhood. For impure sensuality, the mistress of every vice, devising one shameless pleasure after another, insensibly plunges into unmentionable debauchery, experienced in every form of brutal lust.” The jealous Roman husband’s furious desire to prevent the consequences of his wife’s incontinence was by no means well served by the use of such agents; on the contrary, the women themselves profited by the arrangement. By means of these eunuchs, they edited the morals of their maids and hampered the sodomitical hankerings, active or otherwise, of their husbands: Martial, xii, 54: but when the passions and suspicions of both heads of the family were mutually aroused, the eunuchs fanned them into flame and gained the ascendancy in the home. They even went so far as to marry: Martial, xi, 82, and Juvenal, i, 22.
In the third century a certain Valesius formed a sect which, following the example set by Origen, acted literally upon the text of Matthew, v, 28, 30, and Matthew, xix, 12. Of this sect, Augustine, De Heres. chap. 37, said: “the Valesians castrate themselves and those who partake of their hospitality, thinking that after this manner, they ought to serve God.” That injustice was done upon the wrong member is very evident, yet in an age so dark, so dominated by austere asceticism, this clean cut perception of the best interests of suffering humanity, is only to be rivalled by the French physician in the time of the black plague. He had observed that sthenic patients, when bled, died: the superstition and medical usage of the age prescribed bleeding, and when the fat abbots came to be bled, he bled them freely and with satisfaction. Justinian decreed that anyone guilty of performing the operation which deprived an individual of virility should be subjected to a similar operation, and this crime was later punished with death. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we encounter another and even viler reason for this practice: that “the voice of such a person” (one castrated in boyhood) “after arriving at adult age, combines the high range and sweetness of the female with the power of the male voice,” had long been known, and Italian singing masters were not slow in putting this hint to practical use. The poor sometimes sold their children for this purpose, and the castrati and soprani are terms well known to the musical historian.
These artificial voices disgraced the Italian stage until literally driven from it by public hostility, and the punishment of death was the reward of the individual bold enough to perform such an operation. The papal authority excommunicated those guilty of the crime and those upon whom such an operation had been performed, but received artificial voices, which were the result of accident, into the Sistine choir. This pretext served the church well and, until the year 1878, when the disgrace was wiped out by Pope Leo XIII, the Sistine choir was an eloquent commentary upon the attitude of an institution placed, as it were, “between love and duty.” It should be recorded that this choir, in its recent visit to the United States, had but one artificial voice, and its owner was the oldest member of the choir.
Young home-born slaves were bought up by the dealers, castrated, because of the increased price they brought when in this condition, and sold for huge sums: Seneca, Controv. x, chap. 4; and kidnapping was frequently resorted to, just as it is in Africa today.