Anna Comnena quotes

Anna Comnena was a Byzantine princess, scholar, and historian, most famous for writing the "Alexiad." Her work provides an invaluable account of the political and military history of the Byzantine Empire during the First Crusade. She is celebrated as one of the first female historians and an influential figure in medieval intellectual life. Here are 8 of her quotes:

I, having realized the effects wrought by Time, desire now by means of my writings to give an account of my father's deeds, which do not deserve to be consigned to Forgetfulness nor to be swept away on the flood of Time into an ocean of Non-Remembrance; I wish to recall everything...

Anna Comnena

Even now I cannot believe that I am still alive and writing this account of the emperor's death. I put my hands to my eyes, wondering if what I am relating here is not all a dream - or maybe it is not a dream: perhaps it is a delusion and I am mad, the victim of some extraordinary and monstrous hallucination. How comes it that when he is dead I am still numbered among the living?

Anna Comnena

While the abominable pope with his spiritual peace and evangelic peace, this despot, marched to make war on his own kindred with might and main - the man of peace, too, and disciple of the Man of Peace!

Anna Comnena

Father and son you might liken to caterpillars and locusts, for what was left by Robert, his son fed on and devoured.

Anna Comnena

One such was that braggart Robert, notorious for his power-lust, born in Normandy, but nursed and nourished by manifold Evil.

Anna Comnena

Constantine was Nature's masterpiece, a triumph, as it were, of God's handiwork. One look at him would convince anyone that here was a descendant of the mythical Golden Age of the Greeks, so infinite was his charm.

Anna Comnena

The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration.

Anna Comnena