ANNA COMNENA, Byzantine historian, daughter of the Emperor Alexius I. Comnenus, was born on Dec. I 1083. She was carefully trained in the study of poetry, science and Greek philosophy. She united with the Empress Irene in a vain at tempt to prevail upon her father during his last illness to dis inherit his son and give the crown to her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius. She then conspired to depose her brother after his accession; and when her husband refused to join in the enter prise, she exclaimed that "nature had mistaken their sexes, for he ought to have been the woman." The plot being discovered, Anna forfeited her property and fortune. Shortly afterwards, she retired into a convent and employed her leisure in writing the Alexiad—a history, in Greek, of her father's life and reign (Io81–II18), supplementing the historical work of her husband. It is rather a family panegyric than a scientific history. Anna died in 1148.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Editions in Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Hist. Byz., by Bibliography.—Editions in Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Hist. Byz., by J. Schopen and A. Reifferscheid (1839-78), with Du Cange's valuable commentary ; and Teubner series, by A. Reifferscheid (1884) . See also C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (2nd ed. 1897) ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 48 ; Finlay, Hist. of Greece, iii. pp. 53, 128 (1877) ; P. Adam, Princesses byzantines (1893) ; L. du Sommerard, Anne Comnene, Agnes de France (1907) ; C. Diehl, Figures byzantines (1906) .