Eutropius (Greek: Εὐτρόπιος; died 399) was a fourth-century Eastern Roman official who rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Arcadius.
[1] According to Honorius' court poet Claudian, who composed a satirical invective against Eutropius due to the latter's hostility to Claudian's patron, Stilicho,[2] Eutropius served successively as a catamite, pimp, and body-servant to various Roman soldiers and nobles, before winding up among the domestic eunuchs of the imperial palace.
[4][5] After Theodosius' death in 395 he stood at the head of a faction opposed to the powerful Praetorian Prefect of the east, Rufinus.
[6][7] After Rufinus' assassination in 395, Eutropius rose in importance in the imperial court, and he soon became Arcadius' closest advisor.
In the meantime, Eutropius had also been estranged from Eudoxia, the very empress he had installed, who appeared to her husband wailing with her infant daughters about the eunuch's alleged schemes against her.