ABSTRACT
This chapter has two aims: to explore how eunuchs have been treated by historians; and to identify the major methodological problems historians confront studying eunuchs. It is evident that some historians have found the subject an uncomfortable one, reflected by the expression of open hostility or a tendency simply to ignore the topic.1 At the same time the study of eunuchs is complicated by fundamental issues of evidence, including even the identification of individuals as eunuchs. The addressing of this second strand of the current chapter will uncover the more complex reality that lies behind some of the assertions of the previous chapter. What will become clear also is that a broad approach to the topic of eunuchs is profitable, for it reveals at the very least common and persistent issues relating to their study which might otherwise be obscured by too narrow a focus.
