Anna Dalassena, Mother of Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118)

Abstract

Anna Dalassena (Anna Dalassene), 'Mother of the Comneni', was to play an important role in orchestrating the rise to power of her family in the second half of the eleventh century. Indeed, as regent, she openly administered the empire in the early years of her son Alexius I's reign. She had been born c. 1025-1030, daughter of Alexius Charon and a Dalassena (the daughter of Adrian Dalassenus). Her father had gained his name of 'Charon' because of the efficiency with which he killed every enemy he encountered, and the fact that he adopted this new surname implies that he had not been a member of a prominent family. The more aristocratic Dalassenus family on Anna's mother's side originally came from Dalasa-Tarash on the river Euphrates, though Adontz speculated that the family may have had Armenian origins. Dalasseni served as governors of Antioch in the late tenth and eleventh centuries, and were prominent in the military in the Balkans in the 1060s and 1070s, being stationed as commanders at Thessalonica, Serres and Skopje. Such was the family's standing that Constantine Dalassenus (governor of Antioch in 1025) on two separate occasions in 1028 and in 1041 nearly acquired the throne after twice being short-listed as a candidate for marrying the much-married empress Zoe.