The mutual hatred existing between the bloodthirsty factions of the capital, the ancient enmity of the nobles, the jealousy of rival princes, which had more than once caused disastrous riots, the tumultuous fury of the rabble, induced the emperors to habitually distrust the fidelity of those statesmen whose birth and education best qualified them to direct the policy of a great empire. As a necessity, therefore, eunuchs were intrusted with the management of affairs of state and filled the responsible offices of the imperial household. Surrounded by a crowd of dependents and flatterers, these monsters were the fountain of all honor and the recipients of all homage; while the sovereign of the East, shorn of his actual power, was left to the society of monks and parasites. An excessive love of pomp and of magnificent attire was a marked trait of the Byzantine character. The imperial train often included more than twenty thousand servants, the majority of whom were eunuchs. The eunuch was the most conspicuous personage in the government, in the hierarchy, in commercial adventure, in social amusement, in political intrigue. He discharged the functions of a general often with credit, sometimes with consummate skill. His secretive habits and demeanor admirably fitted him for the tortuous paths and insidious methods of diplomatic intercourse. He was a power in the Byzantine hierarchy. Members of his caste were exalted to high positions in the ecclesiastical order. Some attained to the supreme dignity of Patriarch, an office for centuries of greater importance than that of Bishop of Rome. Others controlled the wealthiest sees of the Eastern Church. Monastic life seemed to possess a peculiar attraction for them, and many convents in Constantinople were peopled exclusively by the victims of man’s deliberate cruelty. Some of these institutions contained nearly a thousand inmates. The prominent part taken by this odious class in establishing the standard of modern orthodoxy, through its influence on the ladies of the imperial household in the early days of Christianity, is familiar to every reader of Church history. The insatiable avarice and rapacity of the eunuch impelled him to the accumulation of wealth through the legitimate channels of foreign commerce and domestic enterprise, as well as by the more questionable means of servility and corruption. His ships were known in every port of the Mediterranean. He was identified with the largest mercantile establishments of the capital. In every social assembly he was conspicuous, in every conspiracy his concealed but powerful hand was felt. His equipage was the gayest, his train the most imposing on the streets. In the circus he took precedence of haughty patricians, whom he far eclipsed in splendor of costume. Ever with an eye to his own aggrandizement, he whispered treason in the ears of the nobles and instigated the rabble to revolt. The sentiments