Abstract

The Eunuchs, victims of castration, lived for three thousand years on three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, in the imperial courts or in aristocratic families, carrying out numerous functions. Remembering their story, the article tries to answer three questions. Why, although despised by many, have they experienced strong upward social mobility, becoming powerful and rich? Their presence constituted a challenge, the first in the history of humanity, to the binary conception of gender. How have doctors, theologians and legislators of different civilizations responded to this challenge? What relationship was there between castration and other forms of individual and collective violence?