Michael Dokeianos

Michael Dokeianos (Greek: Μιχαήλ Δοκειανός), erroneously called Doukeianos by some modern writers,[1][2] was a Byzantine nobleman and military leader, who married into the Komnenos family.

[5] According to the near-contemporary official and historian John Skylitzes, Michael Dokeianos was a simple man and not suited for command,[6][7] and according to the modern scholar Konstantinos Varzos he owed his rise to high office to his family ties with the Komnenoi.

Arduin had served under previous Byzantine commanders as part of a Norman contingent, but had been flogged in a dispute about the distribution of booty taken from the Muslims in Sicily (William of Apulia claims this was done by Dokeianos, but it is possible that it was done by one of his predecessors, perhaps George Maniakes).

He sought the aid of the Normans who had been established at nearby Aversa since 1030, and received a contingent of 300 men, upon a promise to share his gains equally with them.

The Lombards and Normans were probably exhausted and may have suffered heavy casualties, while the Byzantines regrouped: Dokeianos was recalled and replaced by Exaugustus Boioannes, while the garrisons in Sicily were withdrawn to the Italian mainland to face the rebel threat.

This succession of defeats signalled the beginning of the end for Byzantine rule in southern Italy, a process which was completed three decades later with the fall of Bari to the Normans under Robert Guiscard.

[9] Dokeianos re-appears in 1050, when he held the titles of patrikios and vestarches, as part of an imperial expedition against the Pechenegs who raided Thrace.