AIDŌS DID NOT PREVENT HER: AN INTERTEXTUAL APPROACH TO KOMNENE’S DEPICTIONS OF WOMEN IN POSITIONS OF POWER BY C. M. JARDINE A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Classics Victoria University of Wellington 2020 Contents Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................. 2 Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 3 Preface Information ............................................................................................................... 4 Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 6 The Alexiad ........................................................................................................................ 7 Intertextuality..................................................................................................................... 9 Behaving Appropriately in the Byzantine Empire .......................................................... 10 East and West .................................................................................................................. 12 Chapter 2: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 13 Bad Girl Komnene ........................................................................................................... 15 Authorship: You Cannot Spell Komnene Without… Men? ............................................ 17 Historian and Woman ...................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 3: Methodology ...................................................................................................... 19 Gender ............................................................................................................................. 19 Intertextuality................................................................................................................... 23 Double Consciousness ..................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 4: Anna Dalassene.................................................................................................. 26 Book One: Mother ........................................................................................................... 26 Book Two: Organiser ...................................................................................................... 28 Book Three: Regent ......................................................................................................... 30 Alexiad 3.7.3 and Euripides’ Phoinissai .......................................................................... 34 Conclusion: Entrusting the Government of the Empire to the Women’s Quarters ......... 36 Chapter 5: Gaita of Salerno and Emma of Hauteville ......................................................... 38 Wife, Adviser and Warrior .............................................................................................. 38 Alexiad 4.6.5: Pallas, Athene and a Homeric Expression ............................................... 42 A Certain Woman ............................................................................................................ 49 Alexiad 12.8.3: tragic actors ............................................................................................ 52 Conclusion: Leading Ladies ............................................................................................ 55 Chapter 6: Anna Komnene .................................................................................................. 56 Something Most Monstrous ............................................................................................ 56 The Entire Heresy of the Bogomils ................................................................................. 61 Sappho Fragment 137 V .................................................................................................. 66 Conclusion: Double Consciousness ................................................................................ 72 Chapter 7: Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 74 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 76 1 Acknowledgments The conditions under which this thesis was completed were strange and stressful and would have been intolerable if not for the support and patience of Thomas Kennedy, as we sat in our flat for more than five weeks working our way through a nationwide lockdown. I would like to acknowledge the hard work of our “team of five million” and that work which still goes on at our border. I consider myself so lucky to be living in Aotearoa New Zealand. My enrolment as a Master of Arts candidate began under much more auspicious circumstances and I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Mark Masterson for not only doing an excellent job of guiding my studies and advising me but also finding my research project worthy of funding. It remains for me to thank the Marsden Fund/Te Pūtea Rangahau A Marsden and the Royal Society/Te Apārangi for supporting new scholarship on the Byzantine Empire. I would also like to thank the past and present residents of OK 520 (Ziming, Steven, Eilish, Jakob, Matthew and Meg) for their kindness and mirth both in and out of the office. Long may F.A.F. reign. I have been duly teased for cleaning the office as soon as I moved in and let the record show that I regret nothing. Lastly, I would like to thank my family for supporting me throughout my studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Living and flourishing in Te Whanganui-a-Tara would not have been possible without your help and the easy distance between all of us. When international travel restrictions ease I will look forward to being with all of you again. Cover image: Hesse, Alexandre, Adoption of Godefroy de Bouillon by Alexis Comnène, 1097, 1842. Oil on canvas. The Palace of Versailles, North wing, Crusades rooms, first room. Cropped to focus on the western edge of the painting where Empress Irene Doukaina is shown seated on a throne and her daughters peer down at the court scene from behind her. 2 Abstract Anna Komnene depicts several women in positions of power in the Alexiad, the earliest extant historiographical text written by a woman from the Byzantine period. The intertextual qualities of these depictions of women, however, have not received much attention and indeed the impact of the gender of the author on the text is a topic which skews much of the scholarship. This thesis aims to show that several signposted quotations of earlier source texts reveal an author in the act of contemplating the expectations of gendered behaviour for her narrative subjects, including her own authorial persona. The chapters in this thesis focus on the depictions of four women and the roles they play in the Alexiad: Anna Dalassene, Gaita of Salerno, Emma of Hauteville and Anna Komnene. First, the construction of one or more of these characters is broken down and the evidence in the text concerning the positions of power held by the woman is analysed. Second, an intertextual reading of a passage related to the characterisation of each woman is posed in order to discuss what is similar or different concerning the source text or texts and the target text. The rhetorical goals behind the depictions of the women are also considered, and their actions in relation to the societal expectations of appropriate gendered behaviour for women and men during the Byzantine Empire. The four case studies demonstrate that Komnene depicted these women using their power in the service of the family unit while showing due deference to their fathers, husbands or adult sons. Furthermore, the “double consciousness” of Komnene, as revealed in these depictions, shows her commitment to the contemplation of the power of women and the ways in which women could utilise their self-control to manipulate expectations of gendered behaviour and thus protect their family units, and therefore the means by which they came to hold power. The outcome of this research contributes to efforts to better understand representations of gender in the literature of the Byzantine empire, deepens the discussions of Komnene’s use of source texts and expands on the insights of earlier scholarship. 3 Preface Information I follow Leonora Neville’s system and cite the Alexiad according to the book, chapter, and paragraph number as it appears in the edition by Reinsch and Kambylis. My research is guided by Peter Frankopan’s revision of E. R. A. Sewter’s English translation of the text. Where I use my own translations from the Alexiad, I will say so. I have spelled names as they appear in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. In quotations and citations, however, I have retained the author’s spelling of names and places. As Penelope Buckley has observed, the conventions of Byzantine history and Byzantine studies make it normal to refer to the historian as “Anna.” However, referring