Anne Comnène
1083-vers 1153 12th century
Holding the memory of those we have loved, when time would carry everything away.
Who was Anne Comnène?
The eldest daughter of the emperor Alexios I, born in the palace at Constantinople, she received a rare education for her time: letters, philosophy, medicine. At her father's death in 1118 she took part in a conspiracy against her brother John II; it failed and she withdrew to the monastery her mother had founded. There, in old age, she wrote the Alexiad, fifteen books to keep the reign and the faces she had known from vanishing altogether.
In their own words
Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things, and drowns them in the depths of obscurity.
But the tale of history forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time, and to some extent checks its irresistible flow.
I, Anna, the daughter of two royal personages, Alexius and Irene, born and bred in the purple.