Laudator Temporis Acti

A.H.M. Jones, "The Social Background of the Struggle between Paganism and Christianity," in Arnaldo Momigliano, ed., The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963; rpt. 1964), pp. 17-37 (at 24):

But by and large there must have been very few Christians in the army when Constan­tine decided to paint the ☧ monogram on the shields of his soldiers before the battle of the Milvian Bridge. The barbarians were still pagan, and so were the bulk of the peasantry, especially in the favourite recruiting grounds of the army, Gaul and Illyricum. We have, in fact, a little piece of evidence that the army which two years later, under the protection of the labarum, fought and won the war against Licinius, which was in Con­stantine’s propaganda a crusade against a pagan tyrant, was still pagan. A curious law in the Theodosian Code has preserved the acclamations of the veterans discharged after the victory. ‘Auguste Constantine, dei te nobis servent’ is what they shouted, and the offensive words were not emended to ‘Deus te nobis servet’ until Justinian re-edited the law for insertion in his Code.<sup>2

2</sup> Cod. Theod. VII.xx.2 ( = Cod. Just. XII.xlvi.1); for the date see Seeck, Regesten, p. 176.