Someone whose lack of ability makes him perfect for the job. Literally, "guarding or keeping the couch." A castrated male in charge of a harem (Webster's).
"The nearer the Emperor approached to Rome, the greater was the license of his march, accompanied as it was by players and herds of eunuchs, in fact by all that had characterised the court of Nero."
Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).
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