John Doukas

John Doukas, Latinized as Ducas (; – ), was the eldest son of Constantine Angelos by Theodora Komnene, the seventh child of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina. John Doukas took the family name of his grandmother Irene. He served as a military commander under Manuel I Komnenos and Isaac II Angelos. Isaac II, who was Doukas's nephew, raised him to the high rank of sebastokrator. Despite his advanced age, he continued to be an active general in the 1180s and 1190s, and until shortly before his death aspired to the imperial throne. He was the progenitor of the Komnenos Doukas line, which founded the Despotate of Epirus after the Fourth Crusade. Life Origin John was eldest son of the founder of the Angelos line, Constantine Angelos from Philadelphia, by Theodora Komnene, the seventh child of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Empress Irene Doukaina. The couple, who married in (1110/15 according to Polemis), had four sons and three daughters, of whom two, John and Andronikos (the father of the future emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos), preferred to use their grandmother's far more prestigious surname of Doukas to their father's surname. The date of John's birth is unknown, and the only reference to his age is that in 1185 he was already an old man. The genealogist of the Komnenian family, Konstantinos Varzos, put his birth date approximately in 1125/27. Under Manuel I and Andronikos I John Doukas is first attested in the sources in March 1166, participating alongside his brothers in a church synod called to adjudicate on the interpretation of the saying of Jesus Christ "the Father is greater than I". In 1176, along with his younger brother Andronikos, he participated as a regiment commander in the campaign against the Seljuk Sultanate of Iconium that led to the Byzantine defeat in the Battle of Myriokephalon. During the battle, he was tasked by Emperor Manuel I Komnenos with pushing back the Seljuk Turks, who had encircled the Byzantine army and were raining arrows upon it, but after a charge against them he turned back without much success.