(Portrait of the Princess Anna Komnene, unknown artist or date, via
Ancient Origins and Pinterest)
Anna Komnene (1083-1153 CE) was
an extraordinary woman. She was an erudite scholar of multiple intellectual
fields and a cunning political schemer who is believed to have attempted to
climb to ultimate power in the Byzantine Empire. Yet, her greatest claim to
fame resulted from her ambitious history, The
Alexiad, which detailed the military and diplomatic accomplishments of her
father, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire from
1081-1118 CE.
