The Alexiad

Her father was the emperor; his reign was her inheritance; and his story became the masterpiece she could not keep silent about. Written in a monastery by the Byzantine princess Anna Komnene, The Alexiad is one of the most celebrated histories ever composed—an intimate, thirty-seven-year portrait of her father Emperor Alexios I and of the empire he held together at the edge of ruin. Blending memoir, war chronicle, court drama, and confession, Anna brings us inside the palace and the battlefield, from the Norman invasions and the swirling plots of Constantinople to the arrival of the armies of the First Crusade at the gates of the city. This new edition renders her brilliant twelfth-century Greek in clear, fluent, present-day English, faithful to the spirit and rhythm of the original, while a glossary and reading notes open the door for today's readers. A story of power, faith, and family, The Alexiad remains a startlingly modern voice from a vanished world. Part of The World Scriptures Library.