As Placidus one day hunted in the forest, the Saviour appeared to
him between the antlers of a hart, and converted him. Placidus
changed his name into Eustache, when he was baptised with his
wife and sons. God announced to him by an angel his future
martyrdom. Eustache was afflicted by dreadful calamities, lost
all his estate, and was compelled to go abroad as a beggar with
his wife and his children. As he went on board a ship bound for
Egypt, his wife was seized by the shipmaster and carried off.
Soon after, when Eustache was travelling along the shore, his two
children were borne off by a lion and a leopard. Eustache then
worked for a long time as journeyman, till he was discovered by
the emperor Trajan, who had sent out messengers for him, and
called him to court. Reappointed captain, Eustache undertook an
expedition against the Dacians. During this war he found his wife
in a cottage as a gardener--the shipmaster had fallen dead to the
ground as he ventured to touch her--and in the same cottage he
found again his two sons as soldiers: herdsmen had rescued them
from the wild beasts and brought them up. Glad was their meeting
again! But as they returned to Rome they were all burnt in a
glowing bull of brass by the emperor's order, because they
refused to sacrifice to the heathen gods.[FN#521]
The story of Placidus, which forms chapter 110 of the continental
"Gesta Romanorum," presents few and unimportant variations from
the foregoing: Eustatius came to a river the water of which ran
so high that it seemed hazardous to attempt to cross it with both
the children at the same time; one therefore he placed upon the
bank, and then passed over with the other in his arms, and having
laid it on the ground, he returned for the other child. But in
the midst of the river, looking back, he beheld a wolf snatch up
the child he had just carried over and run with it into the
adjoining wood. He turned to rescue it, but at that instant a
huge lion approached the other child and disappeared with it.
After the loss of his two boys Eustatius journeyed on till he
came to a village, where he remained for fifteen years, tending
sheep as a hired servant, when he was discovered by Trajan's
messengers, and so on.
The story is so differently told in one of the Early English
translations of the "Gesta Romanorum" in the Harleian MSS. 7333
(re-edited by Herrtage for the E.E.T. Soc., pp. 87-91) that it is
worth while, for purposes of comparison, reproducing it here in
full: