Its function was interpreted in early scholarship as a speaker's attribute during assemblies, but, according to Daniel Unruh, the sceptre apparently served as a physical symbol of authority which could be used to inflict a humiliating punishment.
[3] In his Cyropaedia and Anabasis, Xenophon in the 5th-century BC makes references to skeptouchoi as officials at the Persian court, commonly eunuchs.
Xenophon mentions Artapates, a loyal chief of the skeptouchoi, who accompanied Cyrus the Younger in Asia Minor.
[4] No equivalent term has been identified in Elamite, Old Persian, or Semitic, but the visual representation of skeptouchoi are preserved in the sculptures of Persepolis.
[5][6] Skeptouchoi also appears as a Greek appellation of local princes of the Scythians, as referenced in a c. 200 BC inscription from Olbia,[7] and in Colchis prior to Mithridates Eupator's conquest, as reported by Strabo.