Basil Lekapenos leveraged his unique status as a castrated Byzantine court eunuch to ruthlessly orchestrate imperial successions in Constantinople while amassing vast personal…

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It turns out the best way to survive the notoriously stab-happy politics of the Byzantine Empire was to medically ensure you could never start a royal dynasty.

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It turns out the best way to survive the notoriously stab-happy politics of the Byzantine Empire was to medically ensure you could never start a royal dynasty. Because eunuchs like Basil couldn't legally pass the imperial throne to a son, emperors viewed them as totally non-threatening administrators. Basil exploited this massive biological loophole to become the ultimate shadow broker of Constantinople. He essentially ran the entire empire behind the scenes, casually swapping out emperors when they stopped being useful to him, all while hoarding enough gold to rival the actual royal treasury.

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Basil Lekapenos leveraged his unique status as a castrated Byzantine court eunuch to ruthlessly orchestrate imperial successions in Constantinople while amassing vast personal…

A closer look

A bigger world.One discoveryat a time.

Keep exploring

Byzantine emperor Basil II captured fifteen thousand Bulgarian soldiers at the Battle of Kleidion in 1014 and decided executing them was simply not dramatic enough for his personal brand.

In 1914, a British newspaper told readers German troops boiled corpses into soap.

Louis XVI was obsessed with making locks

Cyrano de Bergerac imagined reaching the Moon with dew

Socrates thought writing would make us forgetful

British soldiers in World War I were issued a daily ration of rum, and the military actually scientifically calculated that a lack of rum would decrease troop morale and combat effectiveness.

A bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.