Quotes from book
Alexiad

The Alexiad is a medieval historical and biographical text written around the year 1148, by the Byzantine historian and princess Anna Komnene, daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.


“Father and son you might liken to caterpillars and locusts, for what was left by Robert, his son fed on and devoured.”

Of Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund
The Alexiad, Book 1

“One such was that braggart Robert, notorious for his power-lust, born in Normandy, but nursed and nourished by manifold Evil.”

Of the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard
The Alexiad, Book 1

“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;”

The Alexiad, Preface
Context: 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.

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