Lucius Cornelius Sisenna

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Lucius Cornelius Sisenna (* 118 BC at the latest; † probably 67 BC) was a Roman senator, speaker and writer.

Life

He came from a senatorial family of Etruscan origin and did military service under Sulla in the alliance war . It is unclear whether he was in Rome in the 80s or with Sulla in the east. He was born in 78 BC. BC Praetor , then probably governor in Sicily. In 70 BC He was involved in the defense of the Verres .

67 BC As legate of Pompey , he led the command in Greece in the pirate war and succumbed to an illness on Crete .

plant

Sisenna was a good rhetorician, but not excellent. A Latin translation of the Milesiaka of Aristesides of Miletus is ascribed to him.

His contemporary history work (Historiae) in more than 13 volumes on the alliance war, the rule of the supporters of Gaius Marius and the Sulla dictatorship , of which around 140 (mostly very short) fragments have survived, was generally recognized . The last datable fragment is from November 82 BC. BC, but the work probably extended to 79/78 BC. BC, so that the Historiae des Sallust immediately follow. The detailed representation took into account military events as well as domestic politics and made use of the dramatic means of Hellenistic historiography (dreams, speeches); Cicero criticizes the one-sided reference to Kleitarchos . The language combines pre-classical versatility with influences from contemporary doctrine : analogistic forms and neologisms alongside rhetorical figures in the speeches.

The Prosullan attitude did not affect the appreciation of the work. After Cicero, Sisenna surpassed all of its predecessors: it was used by Sallust and Titus Livius and the archaists of the imperial era also resorted to it.

literature

  • Hans Beck , Uwe Walter (ed.): The early Roman historians . Vol. 2: From Coelius Antipater to Pomponius Atticus . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-14758-8 , pp. 241-313.
  • Tim Cornell (Ed.): The fragments of the Roman historians . 3 volumes. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, vol. 1, p. 33 f. and 305-319 (Introduction), Vol. 2, pp. 600-671 (text and English translation), Vol. 3, pp. 368-417 (Commentary).
  • Wilhelm Kierdorf : Roman historiography of the republican time . Winter, Heidelberg 2003, pp. 68-70.
  • Wolfgang Dieter Lebek : Verba prisca. The beginnings of archaizing in Latin eloquence and historiography . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1970, pp. 267–286.
  • Elizabeth Rawson: L. Cornelius Sisenna and the Early First Century BC In: The Classical Quarterly . Vol. 29 (1979), pp. 327-346 (reprinted in: Elizabeth Rawson: Roman culture and society. Collected papers . Clarendon, Oxford 1991, pp. 363-388).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cicero , in Verrem 2, 2, 110; possibly CIL 10, 7459 .
  2. ^ Cicero, in Verrem 2, 2, 110.
  3. ^ Appian , Mithridatic Wars 95.
  4. ^ Cassius Dio 36, 18-19.
  5. ↑ a b Cicero, Brutus 228.
personal data
SURNAME Sisenna, Lucius Cornelius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman military and rhetorician
DATE OF BIRTH before 118 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 67 BC Chr.