ABSTRACT
Anna Komnene can be seen as an important figure for Niketas, not only because of her history but because of her ambitions, which we learn about in the first few pages of his history, where he gives a very negative portrait of this famous figure. His description of female characters can be seen as a key to his judgements about the men in their lives, so that the powerful but destructive Anna and her mother Irene can be seen to reflect badly on Alexios I Komnenos. Similarly other women that appear in his pages give an indication of his judgement of the men in their lives, usually their husbands. Although there are classicizing aspects of Niketas’ history, one aspect of his work that strikes the reader as not typical of texts written in antiquity is the frequency with which women are mentioned by him. They even appear in the preface as potential readers of his history. Looking at what Niketas writes about women helps to shed light not only on their male relatives but also what message he wishes to convey to the reader.
