psalliction

Updated: May 13, 2025

The improvement of the revenue was committed to Alexander, a subtle scribe, long practised in the fraud and oppression of the Byzantine schools, and whose name of Psalliction, the scissors, was drawn from the dexterous artifice with which he reduced the size without defacing the figure, of the gold coin.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4