A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Comnenus, Anna
COMNENUS, ANNA,
Daughter to the Greek Emperor Alexius Comnenus, flourished about 1118, and wrote fifteen books on the life and actions of her father, which she called "The Alexiad." Eight of these books were published by Hicscbelius, in 1610, and the whole of them, with a Latin version, in 1651; to another edition of which, in 1670, the learned Charles du Fresne added historical and philological notes.
The authors of the "Journal des Savans," for 1075, have spoken as follows of this learned and accomplished lady. "The elegance with which Anna Comnenus has described the life and actions of her father, and the strong and eloquent manner with which she has set them off, are so much above the ordinary understanding of women, that one is almost ready to doubt whether she was indeed the author of those books. It is certain that we cannot read her descriptions of countries, towns, rivers, mountains, battles, sieges; her reflections upon particular events; the judgments she passes on human actions; and the digressions she makes on many occasions, without perceiving that she must have been very well skilled in grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, physic, and divinity; all of which is very uncommon with her sex."