The life of Sebastian and Companions at Rome
Church tradition holds that he strengthened many under trial, brought several households to baptism, including that of a Roman prefect, and stood by his fellow Christians as, one after another, they were arrested and put to death.
When Sebastian's own faith was discovered, tradition says the emperor had him bound to a stake and shot with arrows and left for dead; a widow named Irene found him still living and nursed him back to health. Rather than flee, he returned to confront the emperor over his cruelty and was finally beaten to death, his body cast aside and later recovered and buried by the faithful. Sebastian's death and burial along Rome's Appian Way are attested in a calendar of martyrs from the year 354, among the earliest and most reliable records of any Roman martyr, though scholars regard the fuller story of his life, companions, and double martyrdom, first written a century or more later, as legendary rather than historical fact.
