Adrianos Komnenos Adrianos Komnenos ( ) , sometimes Anglicized as Adrian or Latinized as Adrianus Comnenus , was a Byzantine aristocrat and general , and a younger brother of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos ( r . 1081 – 1118 ) . Biography . Adrianos Komnenos was the fourth and second - to - last son ( and seventh overall child ) of the " domestikos ton scholon " John Komnenos , the younger brother of Emperor Isaac I Komnenos ( r . 1057 – 1059 ) and Anna Dalassene . According to the historian Nikephoros Bryennios , after John ' s death , Anna entrusted Adrianos and his younger brother Nikephoros to tutors , and gave them an encyclopedic education . After Alexios ' s rise to power in 1081 , Adrianos was raised to the new dignity of " protosebastos " , given the proceeds of the entire Kassandra peninsula in Chalcidice . He was also entrusted with military commands in the campaigns of 1082 – 1083 against the Normans of Robert Guiscard and Bohemund in Thessaly . In 1086 , he succeeded Gregory Pakourianos as " domestikos ton scholon " of the West , and in 1087 , he fought in the Battle of Dristra against the Pechenegs , commanding the Frankish mercenary contingent in the Byzantine centre . The battle ended in a disastrous defeat , and Adrianos barely escaped being captured . Adrianos is mentioned in the " Alexiad " as having participated in the 1091 campaign against the Pechenegs ( along with the " protostrator " Michael Doukas , he supervised the construction of a bridge over the Evros river ) , but is not recorded in the final Battle of Levounion . Shortly after that , Adrianos had a major falling - out with his elder brother , the " sebastokrator " Isaac : the " sebastokrator " held Adrianos responsible for the accusations of conspiring against the emperor that were raised against his son John , governor of Dyrrhachium . In 1094 , Adrianos presided over the court that tried Nikephoros Diogenes , the son of former Emperor Romanos IV ( r . 1068 – 1071 ) , who had tried to assassinate the emperor . In the same year , he is recorded as having participated in the synod that condemned Leo of Chalcedon . His date of death is disputed : the commonly accepted date stems from a manuscript which records him retiring to a monastery under the monastic name John , and dying on 19 April 1105 . Basil Skoulatos , however , doubts this information , since Adrianos ' s name is absent from the dead listed in the Kecharitomene " typikon " ( written circa 1118 ) , but is present in the Pantokrator " typikon " of 1136 . Hence , Skoulatos has placed Adrianos ' s death some time between 1118 and 1136 . Family . Adrianos married the " porphyrogenita " Princess Zoe Doukaina , the third daughter of Emperor Constantine X Doukas ( r . 1059 – 1067 ) and Eudokia Makrembolitissa ( born circa 1062 ) . A number of scholars , including Paul Magdalino , Jean - Claude Cheynet , and Konstantinos Varzos , identify Adrianos and Zoe with a John Komnenos and Anna " of the Doukai " ( the latter being Zoe ' s supposed monastic name ) who are mentioned in tomb inscriptions in the Pammakaristos Church in Constantinople as the church ' s founders , along with their descendants . If this identity is correct , then Adrianos ' s children were :