Best of us all the best he be leic, go go, the Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you

with the support of the Philosophy department at King Scholars London and the

LMU in Munich online at history of philosophy.net. Today's episode, Queen of the Sciences, Anna Komna and her circle.

When I imagine the ideal workplace, I picture a group of industrious committed collaborators

engaged in an enterprise they deeply value, so much so that they would have been

willing to do the same work for free.

They willingly put in long hours, paying close attention to the smallest details, and the

boss is a woman. This utopian scenario remains a rare

at tea yet it was realized almost a millennium ago in Byzantium. The happy workers

were philosophers who devoted themselves to studying and completing

the late ancient tradition of commentary on Aristotle. Their patron was Anna Komene, a princess

who had withdrawn from political life. After the death of her beloved father

Alexios and the accession to the throne of her brother, John, Anna dedicated herself to a life of

scholarship.

As we already know, she herself composed the Alexiad, an epic portrayal of Alexios' political and military exploits.

She also gathered together several scholars to produce those

commentaries on Aristotle, especially texts that had not yet received commentaries earlier

in the Greek tradition. They included Eustratius of Nicia, who is praised in Anna's Alexiad as learned

in both scripture and pagan philosophy and rhetoric, and also Michael of Ephesus, the most accomplished Byzantine commentator on Aristotle.

He did indeed work long hours to the point that he ruined his eyesight reading by candlelight.

We owe that last detailed to a funeral oration dedicated to Anna Komena by another member of her circle named George Tourniques.

Speaking in praise of her devotion to learning, he tells us that Anna followed the example of her father with her supportive scholarship, and that a goal of her circle was the production of exegetical works on so far uncommented treatises of Aristotle. Confirmation of this is provided by one of those

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