Quote · Lex Fridman Podcast
#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Rise & Fall of Empires
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Eunuchs, Taxes, and Power
At 2:14:55 · chapter starts 2:12:11
This chapter zooms out to the machinery of the state. The military is large — between 100,000 and 250,000 soldiers depending on the period — and expensive. The civilian administration exists primarily to fund it through taxation, a system that ran on census data, tax bureaus, courts, and an ever-expanding thicket of exemptions. Kaldellis identifies taxation as the single most important factor binding the empire together, more fundamental than religion, military conquest, or cultural identity. The exemption system created its own corruption dynamics — emperors periodically had to cancel all outstanding exemptions and start over — but overall the fiscal machinery worked. Eunuchs, Kaldellis explains, served a crucial structural function: with no family, no dynastic ambitions, and no aristocratic network, they were entirely loyal to the emperor and could be placed in military commands to counterbalance established generals, preventing any single network from monopolizing power [1] — Anthony Kaldellis "Eunuchs were not just palace servants — they were a deliberate tool for preventing the bureaucracy from capturing the emperor. With no fami…" 2:28:24 . Narses, Justinian's eunuch general who defeated the Goths in Italy as a tiny old man, is the most dramatic proof. Kaldellis also demolishes the myth of isolated rural communities disconnected from the state — the empire censused every piece of arable land, collected taxes three times a year, distributed coinage everywhere, and organized community time through the church calendar. No village was outside the institutional matrix.
The Eastern Roman military maintained a paper strength of between 100,000 and 250,000 soldiers depending on the period, making it comparably large to the Caliphate despite the Caliphate controlling far more territory.
Christianity existed as a minority religion of maybe 10% of the empire when Constantine converted. It did not seize power — power seized it. Unlike Islam, which arose without a preexisting state and built its own, Christianity was absorbed into a highly developed Roman imperial system that shaped its theology, its institutions, and its politics for centuries. The Roman Empire didn't fall to Christianity. It absorbed it.
At the time of Constantine's conversion, Christians may have comprised only around 10% of the Roman Empire's population — perhaps even less — making his adoption of Christianity a remarkable, not politically obvious, choice.
The Roman Empire did not become a solidly Christian society until the early 6th century — roughly five centuries after Jesus — demonstrating how gradual the conversion process was even after imperial endorsement.
Eunuchs were not just palace servants — they were a deliberate tool for preventing the bureaucracy from capturing the emperor. With no family ties, no dynastic ambitions, and no network of aristocratic allies, they were entirely dependent on imperial favor. Emperors could place a palace eunuch in command of an army specifically to shake up established military networks. Sometimes, like Narses who defeated the Goths in Italy as a tiny old man, they were extraordinary at it.
Modern laboratory science has confirmed that the Plague of Justinian (541 AD) was caused by Yersinia pestis — the same bacterium as the Black Death — resolving centuries of historical guesswork.
