She practically exercised--though she could not perhaps legally claim--a power of life and death.

She screened offenders from punishment, procuring for them the royal pardon, or sheltering them in her own apartments; and she poisoned, or openly executed, those who provoked her jealousy or resentment.
The service of the harem, so far as it could not be fitly performed by women, was committed to eunuchs.

Each legitimate wife--as well as the Queen-Mother--had a number of these unfortunates among her attendants; and the king intrusted the house of the concubines, and also that of the virgins, to the same class of persons.

His own attendants seem likewise to have been chiefly eunuchs.

In the later times, the eunuchs acquired a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all the chief offices of state.