> It even shows us why generals and senior civil servants were eunuchs That was the case for "only" around a third to a half of the empire's existence. But by

> It even shows us why generals and senior civil servants were eunuchs That was the case for "only" around a third to a half of the empire's existence. But by the 1000 ADs appointing eunuchs to high posts fell out of fashion with emperors appointing family members or leading in the field directly (unlike in Justinians day when emperors spent almost their entire reign being cloistered in the palace). Somewhere between the first and third crusades there was a non-insignificant chance of the empire becoming much more integrated with Latin/Catholic west. Later Komnenian emperors started adopting Western customs, had fairly good relations with most Crusader and Western States and were attempting to reunite the both churches officially. Of course this process culminated when a French princess became an effective ruler of the empire as a regent for her underage son, she surrounded herself with Latins and parceled off pretty much everything she could off to Italian Merchants. This was met with an extremely violent backlash culminating in her and her son being murdered and a literal genocide (or at least a massive pogrom) of all the westerns living in Constantinople (10-20% of all the people living in the city). And the split was made permanent by the even more violent sack during the 4th crusade by the westerners.