Res Gestae
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).
At this same time, induced by sundry rumours, there came[*](To Constantinople.) a number of Egyptians, a contentious race of men, by custom always delighting in intricate litigation, and especially eager for excessive indemnification if they had paid anything to a collector of debts, either for the purpose of being relieved of the debt, or at any rate, to bring in[*](I.e. pay.) what was demanded of them more conveniently by postponing it; or eager to charge wealthy men with extortion and threaten them with court proceedings.
All these, crowding together and chattering like jays, unseasonably interrupted the emperor himself, as well as the praetorian prefects, demanding after almost seventy years moneys that they declared that they had paid, justly or otherwise, to many individuals.
And, since they prevented any other business from receiving attention, the emperor issued an edict, in which he bade them all go to Chalcedon; and he promised that he would himself also shortly come there, to settle all