ANNA COMNENA, the daughter of the emperor Alcxius Comnenus I. by his wife Irene, was born at Constantinople, in 1083, and was so distinguished by her literary talents, that she acquired the reputation of being the most learned female of her age. Superior to the luxurious indolence of the court in which she received her education, she devoted herself wholly to the study of literature and philosophy, and courted the acquaintance of the most learned men of the age. Upon the death of Constantine, the son of Michael Ducas, to whom she had been betrothed, Anna married Nicepho nus Bryennius, a young nobleman of distinction, who seems to have possessed a greater share of virtue than his royal bride. Neither the lessons of wisdom which she had acquired, nor that passion for literary seclusion which she indulged, had extinguished those seeds of ambition, which afterwards took such a firm root in her heart. During the last illness of Alexius, she united her efforts with those of the empress Irene, to force her dying father to disinherit his son, but it was neither the will of the emperor, nor the wish of his subjects, to alter the order of succession. Exasperated at the failure of her scheme, she traitorously conspired against the life of her brother ; and when the timidity or virtue of her husband frustrated her design, she exclaimed, "that nature had mistaken the two sexes, and had endowed Bryennius with the soul of a woman." Her treason being thus discovered, all her property was confiscated ; but the clemency of her brother re voked the decree, and permitted her to retire, with no other loss but that of her character and influence. Hum
bled by this reverse of fortune, Anna sought for tran quillity in that solitude, which is the willing asylum of excessive piety, but the involuntary retreat of disap pointed ambition. Her time was employed in perpetu ating the virtues of her father, by composing a history of his reign; a work which she finished in 1148, and which is still extant in the collection of the Byzantine histo rians. "Conscious of the just suspicions of her readers," says Gibbon, "the princess Anna Comnena repeatedly protests, that, besides her personal knowledge, she had searched the discourses and writings of the most re spectable veterans : an interval of thirty years, forgotten by, and forgetful of the world, her mournful solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear ; and that truth, the naked perfect truth, was more dear and sa cred, than the memory of her parent. Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative, which wins our be lief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science be trays in every page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constel lation of virtues, and the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology, awaken our jealousy to question the vera city of the historian, and the merit of the hero." See Gibbon's Hist. chap. xlviii. vol. ix. p. 70-73. (o)