Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

"Two other seats of honor or, rather, thrones--for they had footstools placed for the support of the feet, rests for the arms, and embroidered pillows for the comfort of the back, not to mention the glories of the outspreading canopy--were destined for the imperial couple, who frequently attended their daughter's studies, which she prosecuted in public in the way we have intimated. On such occasions, the Empress Irene enjoyed the triumph peculiar to the mother of an accomplished daughter, while Alexius, as it might happen, sometimes listened with complacence to the rehearsal of his own exploits in the inflated language of the princess, and sometimes mildly nodded over her dialogues upon the mysteries of philosophy, with the Patriarch Zosimus, and other sages."

Scott's description gives a graphic presentation of the Princess Anna and of her relations with the various members of her family; and if we add the heir to the throne, her younger brother John, for whom she had profound contempt in spite of his many virtues, we have the group about whom revolve the narrative of her history and the chief events of her life.

It is not necessary for us to enter into the story of the First Crusade, and of the incidents of the intercourse of Franks and Greeks, which Anna tells so graphically in her history; but before calling attention to the literary qualities and historical value of her work, we must note those events which unfolded her character and, in her later years, brought about her exclusive devotion to literature.

Owing to his duplicity and lack of confidence in men, Alexius made his wife and his learned daughter his confidantes and his advisers in many of the affairs of State, and frequently utilized their services in gaining his ends. Both the imperial ladies were apt pupils in the school of political intrigue, and, in the last years of the emperor, endeavored to utilize their influence over him to the detriment of the heir-apparent and the elevation of Anna and her husband, the Cæsar Nicephorus. They accordingly formed a plot, during Alexius's last illness, to dispossess the eldest son John, that the three might share the government among them.

The empress introduced soldiers into the palace, and in the closing hours of the emperor's life sought to prevail on him to pronounce the words which would bring about the change in the succession. But the astute emperor realized his son's eminent fitness to wear the crown, and was not in sympathy with the ambitions of his learned but unscrupulous daughter. To all the entreaties of the empress he but cast his eyes heavenward and remarked on the vanities of human greatness. Despairing and enraged, the empress at last hastily left the room with a parting thrust at her imperial consort, which might fitly have been inscribed as an epitaph on his tomb: "You die as you lived--a hypocrite!" Meanwhile, during her absence, John entered the room, and, with the tacit consent of his dying father, removed from his finger the signet which gave him command of all the forces of the palace; and crushing, in their inception, the plots of the empress and her daughter, he was solemnly crowned the moment his father breathed his last.

John proved to be the most amiable character that ever occupied the Byzantine throne. But all his virtues did not suffice to quell the malice and disappointed ambition of his imperial sister. In spite of the failure of the first conspiracy, the Princess Anna, "whose philosophy would not have refused the weight of a diadem," entered into another plot to dispossess her brother--already secure in the confidence of courtiers and subjects--and to elevate her husband, whom she felt sure of ruling. As John was already on the throne, however, the only way by which he could be disposed of was to have his eyes put out or to resort to the still worse crime of secret assassination. When her mild and gentle husband recoiled at the thought of such cruelty, Anna made to him the memorable response that Nature had mistaken the two sexes and had endowed him with the soul of a woman, contemptuously contrasting what she termed his feminine weakness with her own manly inhumanity.

This conspiracy, however, was also revealed before it had made any serious headway, and John deemed it necessary to confiscate his sister's wealth in order to make further intrigues impossible. He caused the Princess Anna to retire to a convent and bestowed her luxuriously furnished palace on his favorite minister, Axouchus. But the noble nature of Axouchus recoiled at being benefited by the princess's fall, and thought more of turning the situation to the emperor's advantage than of enriching himself. Accordingly, he suggested to the emperor that it would be better policy to ward off the malice of his enemies by restoring the palace to Anna, and seeming to ignore her futile plots. John felt the prudence of the advice, and impressed by the unselfish devotion of his friend,--a quality most rare in late Byzantine times,--replied in like spirit: "I should, indeed, be unworthy to reign if I could not forget my anger as readily as you forget your interest." Anna was reinstated in her palace.

But little is known of the rest of Anna Comnena's life. Tiring finally of the vanities of court life, disappointed in all her intrigues for absolute power, and becoming ever more absorbed in her literary undertakings, she seems to have voluntarily sought the life of the cloister and to have spent the last decades of her career in peaceful retirement, engaged on her monumental work. She survived her brother John, who died in 1143, and was still at work on her history in 1145. The date of her death is unknown.

The great work of Anna Comnena is entitled the Alexiad, and is one of the most important works in the voluminous collection of the Byzantine historians. In fifteen books, it narrates the history of Alexius Comnenus; and is a completion and continuation of a work in four books, left by her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius. The first two books of Anna's work treat of the rise into power of the Comneni house, and of the early life of Alexius; the remaining thirteen are devoted to the events of his reign.

The work of Anna, as a contribution to historical literature, has very decided deficiencies. In spite of her professed love of truth, her filial vanity tempts her at all times to put her father and her family in the best light. The very title, Alexiad suggests rather an epos--a poem in prose--than a serious historical work, and emphasizes its epideictic tendency. As a woman, she is impressed with the concrete rather than the abstract, and describes brilliant state functions, church festivals, imposing audiences and the like with much more familiarity and enthusiasm than she displays in her treatment of the underlying causes and inner connections of events. But with all their faults, these memoirs are an authoritative account of a brilliant and important epoch, and of a ruler who for his military sagacity and political shrewdness ranks among the great personages of the Middle Ages.