Accompanying Romanos was Andronicus Ducas, son of his rival, John Ducas. The army consisted of about professional Byzantine troops from the western provinces and probably about the same number from the eastern provinces. These included long established regular units ("Heteria", "Scholai" and "Straelati") of the central field army ("Tagmata"). Amongst the native Byzantine element of the army were provincial troops from both the eastern and western military "themes". The rear guard at Manzikert was largely made up of the private retinues and peasant levies of the border lords ("archontes"), under Andronicus Ducas. Finally, the large and diverse host included 500 Frankish and Norman mercenaries under Roussel de Bailleul, some Turkic (Uz and Pecheneg) and Bulgarian mercenaries, infantry under the duke of Antioch, a contingent of Georgian and Armenian troops and some (but not all) of the Varangian Guard to total around 40,000 men. The quantity of the provincial troops had declined in the years prior to Romanos, as the government diverted funding to mercenaries who were judged less likely to be involved in politics and could be disbanded after use to save money.