The Gift of Loyalty

Apologies for the delayed post.  My interest in the Late Latin military was especially fostered this week with St. Martin's foray into the Roman army.  As was custom for Roman emperors of the 3rd and 4th centuries, loyalty of the troops was ensured by the so called 'donative,' a significant sum of money paid to each individual soldier on the emperor's accession and on significant days and anniversaries.  In fact, during the crisis of the third century, there are several short ruling emperors, Aemilian and Florian to name a few, who despite the gifts lavished upon their troops, soon found themselves betrayed and in most cases killed by the very troops who they themselves had just rewarded.  Of course, the new emperor, now supported by the troops, would give them a new donative and the cycle began anew.  In this particular case, Martin's refusal to fight because of his religion, in addition to being surprising to the emperor because of the large sum of money that awaited the future saint, but his anger (infremuit) may also stem from the fact that Julian was one of the last pagan emperors and most likely was none too happy about this man trying to get out of military service on account of his Christian faith.