Transmission of Legal Provisions on Eunuchs from Rome to Byzantium

The presence of eunuchs constituted a significant element within the Byzantine Empire, and those involved in its legal system, such as emperors and lawyers, have expressed a variety of perspectives on the legal status and capacity of eunuchs. This paper aims to review how such laws on eunuchs were transmitted from the time of Justinian I to the Macedonian period, in terms of both continuity and change. A comparative analysis of sixth-century legal provisions and those from the end of the ninth century onwards, such as the Basilika, including its scholia, can shed light on the possibility that provisions in Roman law were well-preserved and handed down to the Middle Byzantine Empire, albeit within the limitations of available sources.