The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Anna Comnena

ANNA COMNENA, daughter of Alexis Comnenus, emperor of Constantinople, and the empress Irene, born Dec. 1, 1083, died in 1148. She was married to Nicephorus Bryennius, a Greek nobleman of distinction, whom she incited after the death of her father, in 1118, to conspire against her brother and seize the sceptre. The conspiracy failed, and Anna and her husband were banished from Constantinople and stripped of most of their property. Anna during her exile composed a biography of her father, which she styled Alexias. This work is divided into 19 books, and, though very defective in many respects, is yet of great importance as a history of the period of which it treats. The best edition of the Alexias is Schopen's, published at Bonn in 1839.