In 374 he was assassinated by a eunuch from motives of private revenge.
The conduct of a new campaign was entrusted to the eunuch Narses; Totila marched against him and was defeated and killed at the battle of Tagina in July 552.
Arcadius submitted at first to the guidance of the praetorian prefect Rufinus, and, after his murder (end of 395) by the troops, to the counsels of the eunuch Eutropius (executed end of 399).
The eunuch seems to have led his army round the head of the Adriatic Gulf.
An offshoot of the Khlysti is the more celebrated secret sect of the Skoptsi (skopets, a eunuch), which represents an extreme ascetic reaction from the promiscuous immorality of some (by no means all) of the Khlysti.