Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor
It was inspired by an Emir who used apostate Christian sailors who had been taken captive as a bodyguard on the grounds that being alienated from everyone else (the Christians thought them traitors, and hated them, and the Muslims and Jews were suspicious of the sincerity of their conversion and weren't to fond of them either). Similarly this kind of slave would be totally dependent on the King as they could not flee.
It might also be a fetish, much as Circassians were once popular for harems.
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Not that different from the Roman Emperors using Germans or Dacians as bodyguards ... especially if you combine it with tendency of other Roman aristocrats to use gladiators as bodyguards.