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Sisenna, L. Cornelius

A Roman annalist who was praetor in the year when Sulla died (B.C. 78), and probably obtained Sicily for his province in 77. From the local knowledge thus acquired he was enabled to render good service to Verres, whose cause he espoused. During the war against the pirates (B.C. 67) he acted as the legate of Pompey, and, having been despatched to Crete in command of an army, died in that island at the age of about 52. His great work, entitled Historiae, extended to at least fourteen or nineteen books, which contained the history of his own time (Gell. xii.15.2). Cicero pronounces Sisenna superior as an historian to any of his predecessors (Brut. 64, 228). The fragments are given in Peter's Hist. Reliq. 297. In addition to his Historiae, Sisenna translated the Milesian tales of Aristides (printed by Bücheler in his small edition of Petronius [Berlin, 1882]), but is probably not the person of the same name who composed a commentary upon Plautus. See Schneider, De Sisennae Historiae Reliquiis (Jena, 1882).

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