Yes. It's most likely a reference to the Byzantine practice of blinding, a subset of the larger practice of political mutilation. Because an emperor had to be "perfect," mutilating potential imperial heirs or would-be usurpers would seriously damage their claim to power. Sometimes this didn't exactly work: Justinian II (685-695/705-711) had his nose cut off after being deposed the first time, but he seized the throne again regardless, and John VII Palaiologos had been partially blinded (as a result of participating in an imperial coup) before becoming sole emperor in 1390, but such cases are very rare: Constantine VI (776-797), Michael V (December 1041-April 1042), Romanos IV (1068-1071), and John IV (1258-1261) were all deposed and blinded, and never heard from again. Even for non-imperial victims of blinding, presumably the accompanying disgrace and/or monastic exile (and/or death) would prevent them from inheriting even low-level titles.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any modern scholarship dealing specifically with blinding in Byzantium. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium's entries on "Blinding" and "Mutilation" give a good general overview of the practice, but aren't very useful for finding more information (at least in English). Wikipedia has a handy list of some famous examples of blinding in Byzantium, if you'd be interested in finding more about specific individuals, but it unhelpfully doesn't include any scholarship on blinding as a practice. I'm most familiar with work on Byzantine castration, which was understood a bit differently from blinding, but which could also work in similar ways: as political punishment, punitive mutilation, etc. If you're interested in the general theory that motivated political mutilation in Byzantium, I can probably find some more specific citations for you - just let me know.