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Quotation from Sts. Roch and Sebastian: Plague Saints by Jacobus de Voragine; Francesco Diedo tradition; later plague devotion
“Diocletian, cruel emperor of Rome, commanded that Sebastian should be led into the middle of a field and there bound to a stake, and that his archers should shoot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks”
Sts. Roch and Sebastian: Plague Saints, Golden Legend, Life of St. Sebastian, trans. William Caxton/F. S. Ellis tradition
The arrow episode supplied the visual logic for Sebastian's later plague iconography.
Citation: "Diocletian, cruel emperor of Rome, commanded that Sebastian should be led into the middle of a field and there bound to a stake, and that his archers should shoot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks" — Jacobus de Voragine; Francesco Diedo tradition; later plague devotion, Sts. Roch and Sebastian: Plague Saints, Golden Legend, Life of St. Sebastian, trans. William Caxton/F. S. Ellis tradition. (id sts-roch-and-sebastian-q3)
Portrait: Saint Roch and Saint Sebastian, North Italian Painter, Public domain.
