Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone,
I hope that you are all feeling okay. I was wondering whether you could please share your favourite facts about your special interests. I think that it would be a good way for me to distract myself from feeling upset, and maybe it will help other people too.
Thank you.
In 1118, the newly acclaimed Byzantine emperor, John II Komnenos, was so wary of the possibility of assassination, organised by his sister Anna and his mother, that he refused to attend the funeral of his father, Alexios I. Within a year, another conspiracy was betrayed to John, by Nikephoros Bryennios, Anna's husband. John ensured that his mother was confined to a nunnery and his sister was entirely removed from public life. John went on to be known as 'John the Good', an able administrator and gifted general. Anna wrote a biographical history of her father, mentioning her brother only twice, once just to say that he was an ugly baby!
I had to read a couple of chapters of The Alexiad of Anna Komnena at university, as a primary source document on the first crusade.
Yes, the mounted 'Kelt' being able to able to make a hole in the walls of Babylon quote, is a classic. I have the Penguin edition of the Alexiad.