Crime & punishment > Essay on crimes and punishments

228 A COMMENTARY on
CHAP. XX.
On a certain Species of Mutilation.
WE find, in the Pandett, a law of Adrian,
which denounces death to the phyficians who
fhould make an eunuch, either by caftration or by
bruifmg the tejies. By the fame law, the pofleffions
of thofe who fuffered eaftration were confifcated.
Origen ought certainly to have been punilhed,
who fubmitted to this operation, from the rigid
interpretation of that pafiage in St. Matthew,
which fays, There be eunuchs^ which have made
themfelves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's fake.
Things changed in the reigns of fucceeding em¬
perors, who adopted the luxury of Afia; efpecially
in the lower empire of Conftantinople, where eu¬
nuchs became patriarchs and generals of armies.
In thefe our own times, it is the cuftom at
Rome to caftntte young children, to render them
worthyof being muficians to his Holinefs; fo that
Cafrato and Muftco del Papa are fynonimous. It
(is not long fince you might have feen at Naples,
written in great letters over the doors of certain
barbers, ^ui ft cafrano maravigliofamente iputi:
here boys are callrated in the bell manner.
CHAP.