PLACIDO, EUTICHIO and COMPANIONS, saints, martyrs. - They probably perished in the Diocletian persecution (303–13).
The Martyrologium Hieronymianum commemorates them on 5 October as Sicilian martyrs: « in Sicilia ». In the same Martyrologium, however, P. is also commemorated on 29 September, 11 and 14 October; according to H. Delehaye, these would always be the same martyr. Eutichio too is commemorated on 29 September as a martyr of Eraclea. According to the common reading, the anonymous group consisted of 30 martyrs, but according to another reading of only 8. The authentic acts have been lost. The identification of P. with the disciple of St Benedict, and of Eutichio as his brother, is a false opinion originating at Montecassino in the 11th–12th centuries, Pietro Diacono (v.), who maintained that those disciples, sent by St Benedict to Messina to found a monastery there (that of S. Giovanni Battista), were killed there by Saracen pirates from Spain. The discovery of human bones in the choir of the church of S. Giovanni Battista in Messina on 4 August 1588 led to the conclusion that they were those of the martyr monks. They were chosen as patrons of the city, and from Sisto V there was obtained (13 November 1588) their feast with a double rite for Messina and its province, with a simple rite for the rest of the Church, and their insertion in the Martyrologium Romanum (5 October).