Anna Comnena, a learned Byzantine princess, author of one of the most valuable of the Byzantine histories, was the daughter of the Emperor Alexius I. (Comnenus), and was born on December 1, 1083. She received the best education that
Constantinople could give, and early displayed a fondness for literary pursuits; but was also habituated from her childhood to the intrigues of the court; and during the last illness of her father, she entered into a scheme, which her mother, the Empress Irene, also favoured, to induce him to disinherit his eldest surviving son, John, and to bestow the diadem on her. Failing in this, she framed a conspiracy against the life of her brother (1118); and when her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius, a Byzantine nobleman, either from timidity or virtuous principle, refused to join in it, she passionately lamented that she had not been born a man, and upbraided him for having the soul of a woman. Her brother spared her life, but confiscated her property, which, however, he soon after generously restored. Disappointed and ashamed, she withdrew from the court, and sought solace in literature. On the death of her husband (1137), she retired into a convent, where she died in 1148. Her life of her father, entitled Annae Comnenae Alexiadis libri XIX., is full of professions of careful inquiry and a supreme regard for truth, the effect of which is weakened by 'the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology.' The style is characterised by an elaborate affectation of rhetoric. The best edition is that of Schopen and Reifferscheid (2 vols. 1839-78). See Oster's Anna Comnena (3 vols. 1868-71).