The Byzantine princess and historian Anna Comnena (1083-1148) was one of the major court figures of the Comneni period. She was the author of the "Alexiad," a history of her father's reign.

Anna Comnena was the oldest daughter of the emperor Alexius I, a member of the military aristocracy who seized Constantinople and the throne in 1081, and Irene Ducas. Comnena was born in the room reserved for imperial infants and entered the world as heiress to the throne. At an early age she was betrothed to Constantine Ducas, son of Michael VII and a cousin in her mother's family, who also had a claim to the crown. In 1088 a son, John, was born to Irene and Alexius; and as the male heir, the rights of succession were soon transferred to him. Comnena never reconciled herself to this turn of fortune's wheel, and she nurtured a pathological hatred of...