Andronikos Doukas was son of the
Caesar John Doukas and Eirene Pegonitissa. His father was a brother of Emperor
Constantine X Doukas. His maternal grandfather was Niketas Pegonites. Andronikos himself was a first cousin of
Michael VII Doukas. In 1071 Andronikos was the commander of a section of the Byzantine army in the campaign of
Romanos IV Diogenes against the
Seljuk Turks of
Alp Arslan. Commanding the rearguard of the army during the
Battle of Manzikert, Andronikos announced that the emperor had been cut down and deserted from the battlefield. He was widely blamed for causing the crushing defeat of the Byzantine forces and the subsequent capture of Romanos IV by the enemy. In 1072, after Romanos had been released by Alp Arslan, Andronikos and his brother Constantine were sent out by Michael VII and their father the Caesar John to intercept him. They defeated Romanos and hunted him down in
Cilicia. It was Andronikos who finally obtained Romanos' surrender and conducted him towards
Constantinople. In spite of his former hatred for the deposed emperor, Andronikos is said to have opposed his blinding on 29 June 1072. In an act of 1073, he is recorded with his titles as
protoproedros,
protovestiarios and
megas domestikos, which
Michael Attaleiates clarifies as being the post of
domestikos ton scholon of the East, which he had been given when sent against Diogenes. In 1074, together with his father, Andronikos commanded the imperial army against the rebel mercenaries led by
Roussel de Bailleul. However when the Byzantine rearguard under
Nikephoros III Botaneiates abandoned them (ironic as Andronikos did the same thing at Manzikert), the
Battle of the Zompos Bridge was effectively lost. Both were captured by the rebels, who released the badly wounded Andronikos to allow him to seek proper medical treatment in Constantinople. There he recovered for a few years, but in October 1077 died of an
edema. ==Family==