ST

SEBASTIAN  , a Christian martyr whose festival is celebrated on the 2oth of January . According to St Ambrose (in Psalm 118, oct . 20) Sebastian was a native of Milan, went to Rome at the height of Diocletian's persecution, and there suffered martyr-dom . The Ada of St Sebastian, falsely attributed to the same St Ambrose, are far less sparing of details . They make him a citizen of Narbonne and captain of the first cohort under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian . Having secretly become a Christian, Sebastian was wont to encourage those of his brethren who in the hour of trial seemed wavering in their profession . This was conspicuously the case with the brothers Marcus and Marcellinus . He made many converts, several of whom suffered martyrdom . Diocletian, having been informed of this conduct, sent for him and earnestly remonstrated with him, but, finding him inflexible, ordered him to be bound to a stake and shot to death . After the archers had left him for dead, a devout woman, Irene, came by night to take his body away for burial, but, finding him still alive, carried him to her house, where his wounds were dressed . No sooner had he wholly recovered than he hastened to confront the emperor, reproaching him with his impiety; Diocletian ordered him to be instantly carried off and beaten to death with rods . The sentence was forthwith executed, his body being thrown into the cloaca, where, however, it was found by another pious matron, Lucina, whom Sebastian visited in a dream, directing her to bury him ad Catacombas juxta vestigia apostolorum .

It was on this spot, on the

Appian way, that was built the basilica of St Sebastian, which was a popular place of pilgrimage in the middle ages . The translation of his relics to Soissons in 826 made that town a new centre of his cult . St Sebastian is specially invoked against the plague . As a young and beautiful soldier, he is a favourite subject of sacred art, being most generally represented undraped, and severely though not mortally wounded with arrows . See Acta Sanctorum, January, ii . 257-296; Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina (Brussels, 1899), n . 7543-7549; A . Bell, Lives and Legends of the Evangelists, Apostles and other early Saints (London, 1901), pp . 238-240 . (H .