ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to throw the spotlight on one such figure, uniquely known not from an Arabic source but a Byzantine one: the unnamed woman who led the defence of Gangra from the assault of the Emperor John II Komnenos in 1135. The Amira’s reference to allies may be a subtle reference to the betrayal of Sultan Mas’ud of Konya, a former Muslim client of John’s whose troops had abandoned John in the middle of the night on the eve of battle when John was about to assault Gangra. Beginning with the possible reality of the Amira’s defence of Gangra, even if the golden age of historical Muslim women warriors was centuries before, there is one significant exception. Prodromos is also partial to portraying the emperor as constantly working hard for his people, indeed in one poem he compares the ‘golden sweat’ from the emperor’s brow to the blood of Christ for its redemptive powers.
