Konstantinos X Doukas

Constantine X Doukas or Ducas (, Kōnstantinos X Doukas, – 23 May 1067), was Byzantine emperor from 1059 to 1067. He was the founder of the Doukid dynasty. During his reign, the Normans took over much of the remaining Byzantine territories in Italy while in the Balkans the Hungarians occupied Belgrade. He also suffered defeats by the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan. Reign Constantine's parents are not mentioned in any primary sources, but some scholars theorize that he was the son of Andronikos Doukas, a nobleman who served as strategos of Preslav during the reign of Basil II. Historians often give his birthdate as 1006, as he is said to have died aged "slightly over sixty years". He was an academic, addicted to endless debates about philosophy and theology, and he gained influence after he married, as his second wife, Eudokia Makrembolitissa, a niece of Patriarch Michael Keroularios. In 1057, Constantine supported the usurpation of Isaac I Komnenos, gradually siding with the court bureaucracy against the new emperor's reforms. In spite of this tacit opposition, Constantine was chosen as successor by the ailing Isaac in 1059, under the influence of Michael Psellos. Isaac abdicated on 22 November and Constantine X was crowned emperor on the following day. The new emperor quickly associated two of his young sons in power, Michael VII Doukas and Konstantios Doukas, appointed his brother John Doukas as kaisar (caesar), and embarked on a policy favorable to the interests of the court bureaucracy and the church. Severely undercutting the training and financial support for the armed forces, Constantine X disbanded the Armenian local militia of 50,000 men at a crucial point of time, coinciding with the westward advance of the Seljuk Turks and their Turcoman allies. Undoing many of the necessary reforms of Isaac I Komnenos, he bloated the military bureaucracy with highly paid court officials and crowded the Senate with his supporters.