 Kourkouas ranks among the greatest military leaders Byzantium produced , a fact recognized by the Byzantines themselves : later Byzantine chroniclers hailed him as the general who restored the imperial frontier to the Euphrates , and in a contemporary eight @-@ book history , written by a protospatharios Michael and now lost save for a short summary in Theophanes Continuatus , he is acclaimed as " a second Trajan or Belisarius " . 
