If anyone were to calculate the sums of which they were thus deprived during these thirty-two years, he would find that the amount was very considerable.

Such was the shameful manner in which the tyrant treated his soldiers.
I will now relate how he behaved towards merchants, mariners, artisans, shopkeepers and others.

There are two narrow straits on either side of Byzantium, the one in the Hellespont, between Sestos and Abydos, the other at the mouth of the Euxine Sea, close to the chapel of the Holy Mother.

In the strait upon the Hellespont, there was no public custom-house, but an officer was sent by the Emperor to Abydos, to see that no ship loaded with arms should pass on the way to Byzantium without the Emperor's leave, and also that no person should put out to sea from Byzantium without letters of licence signed by the proper official, no ship being allowed to leave the city without the permission of the secretaries of the Master of Offices.

The amount which the praetor exacted from the shipmasters under the name of toll was so insignificant that it was disregarded.