Bryennius, Nicephorus

, was a native of Orestia, in Macedonia, and married the princess Anna Comnena, daughter of Alexius Comnenus, who raised him to the rank of Caesar, but declined announcing him as his successor in prejudice of his own son. After the death of Alexius, the empress Irene and her daughter Anna | attempted to elevate Bryennius to the empire, but he refused to concur in the plot. Having been sent in 1137 to besiege Antiocb, he fell sick, and returning to Constantinople, died in that city. His history of the reigns of Isaac Comnenus and of the three succeeding emperors, was comprised in four books, and published with a Latin translation, by the Jesuit Poussines, at Paris, in 1661, to which the annotations of Du Cange were annexed in 1670. ¹