The Alexiad Quotes

“It is extraordinary that nobody nowadays under the stress of great troubles is turned into stone or a bird or a tree or some inanimate object; they used to undergo such metamorphoses in ancient times (or so they say), though whether that is myth or a true story I know not. Maybe it would be better to change one's nature into something that lacks all feeling, rather than be so sensitive to evil. Had that been possible, these calamities would in all probability have turned me to stone.”
― Anna Comnena, The Alexiad

“The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration; as the playwright [Sophocles] says, it 'brings to light that which was unseen and shrouds from us that which was manifest.' Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against this stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion.

...I, having realized the effects wrought by Time, desire now by means of my writings to give an account of my father's deeds, which do not deserve to be consigned to Forgetfulness nor to be swept away on the flood of Time into an ocean of Non-Remembrance; I wish to recall everything....”
― Anna Comnena, The Alexiad

“Even now I cannot believe that I am still alive and writing this account of the emperor's death. I put my hands to my eyes, wondering if what I am relating here is not all a dream - or maybe it is not a dream: perhaps it is a delusion and I am mad, the victim of some extraordinary and monstrous hallucination. How comes it that when he is dead I am still numbered among the living?”
― Anna Comnena, The Alexiad

“For they do not look through to the soul, nor have a keen eye for virtue, but they stop at the outward excellencies of the body, and admire daring, and strength, speed in running, and size, and consider these as fit qualifications for the purple robe and diadem.”
― Anna Comnena, The Alexiad

“In the course of this account, partly because of the nature of the history and partly because of the great importance of these events, I have forgotten that it is my father whose successes I am writing of. Often, in my desire not to incur suspicion, in the composition of my history I hurry over affairs that concern him, neither exaggerating nor adding my personal observations. I wish I were detached and free from this feeling that I have for him, so that seizing on this vast material I might demonstrate how much my tongue, when release from all restraint, could delight in noble deeds. But the natural love I have for him overshadows my personal wishes: I would not like the public to imagine that I am inventing marvels in my eagerness to speak about my own family. On many occasions when I recalled the glorious deeds of my father, if I had written down and given a full account of all the troubles he endured, I would have wept away my very soul, and I could not have passed over the story without lamentation and mourning. But so far as that part of my history is concerned, I must avoid the subtleties of rhetoric, and like some unfeeling stone or marble pass quickly over his misfortunes. If I wanted to win a deserved reputation for loving him, I should have included his disasters in an oath, like the young man who swore: “No Agelaos, by Zeus and by my father’s woes”. For I am certainly no worse than that young man. But now we must leave my father’s sufferings; I alone must marvel at them and weep, but the reader must return to the narrative.”
― Anna Comnena, The Alexiad

“Wars against the barbarians, with all their attendant trials and tribulations he was prepared to face himself, but the entire administration of affairs, the choice of civil magistrates, the accounts of the imperial revenues and expenditure he left to his mother. At this point the reader may well censure him for transferring the government of the Empire to the gynaeconitis, but had he known this woman’s spirit, her surpassing virtue, intelligence and energy, his reproaches would soon have turned to admiration. For my grandmother had an exceptional grasp of public affairs, with a genius for organization and government; she was capable, in fact, of managing not only the Roman Empire, but every other empire under the sun as well.”
― Anna Comnena, The Alexiad