Mihailo continued to co-rule with his son Bodin until the mid-1081. After this period, only Bodin is mentioned. For a while, relations with the Byzantine Empire were good again. Historian Anna Komnene wrote that emperor Alexios I Komnenos "made Bodin and Mihailo, exarchs of the Dalmatians, his friends, gained their sympathies through letters and gifts, opening many secret doors to him (this way)". Bodin was granted the Byzantine high title of "protosebastos". In the final period of his rule, Mihailo achieved good relations with the Byzantine provinces in southern Italy. As a result, Bodin married Jaquinta of Bari, daughter of Bari's governor Argyritzos. As a Norman, Argyritzos supported Norman conquest of southern Italy. The Normans then made plans to attack Byzantine domain in the Balkans. Headed by Robert Guiscard, the Normans decided to capture Dyrrachium. Bodin initially engaged Normans in several skirmishes and sided with emperor Alexios in the upcoming Battle of Dyrrhachium. The battle occurred on 18 October 1081, however Bodin didn't engage in battle at all. He kept his army aside and when he saw than Normans are winning, he returned to Duklja. He used this Byzantine defeat to renounce any formal vassal relation which Byzantine Empire still considered to exist and to attack the hinterland of Duklja, taking from the Byzantines the lands of Raška (old land of the Vlastimirović dynasty) and Bosnia, where he appointed his governors: his nephews Vukan and Marko in Raška, and Stephen in Bosnia.