I'm not going to get into the details of why, because they're horrifying. I'm just going to link to an article in the video info. You started out just being harem guards, Ottoman eunuchs, which is kind of an obvious gig for you. But then, you expanded. As had happened in China, you made yourselves indispensable, and you were often the center of palace intrigue. In fact, few people in the Ottoman Empire were as wealthy and important as many of you were. Way to turn lemons into lemonade.