Siscia, a town of Pannonia, now Sisseg.
Sisenes, a Persian deserter, who conspired against Alexander, &c. Curtius, bk. 3, ch. 7.
Lucius Sisenna, an ancient historian among the Romans, 91 B.C. He wrote an account of the republic, of which Cicero speaks with great warmth, and also translated from the Greek the Milesian fables of Aristides. Some fragments of his compositions are quoted by different authors. Ovid, Tristia, bk. 2, li. 443.—Cicero, Brutus, ltrs. 64 & 67.—Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 9.——Cornelius, a Roman, who, on being reprimanded in the senate for the ill conduct and depraved manners of his wife, accused publicly Augustus of unlawful commerce with her. Dio Cassius, bk. 54.——The family of the Cornelii and Apronii received the surname of Sisenna. They are accused of intemperate loquacity in the Augustan age, by Horace, bk. 1, satire 7, li. 8.
Sisigambis, or Sisygambis, the mother of Darius the last king of Persia. She was taken prisoner by Alexander the Great at the battle of Issus, with the rest of the royal family. The conqueror treated her with uncommon tenderness and attention; he saluted her as his own mother, and what he had sternly denied to the petitions of his favourites and ministers, he often granted to the intercession of Sisygambis. The regard of the queen for Alexander was uncommon, and, indeed, she no sooner heard that he was dead, than she killed herself, unwilling to survive the loss of so generous an enemy; though she had seen, with less concern, the fall of her son’s kingdom, the ruin of his subjects, and himself murdered by his servants. She had also lost, in one day, her husband and 80 of her brothers, whom Ochus had assassinated to make himself master of the kingdom of Persia. Curtius, bk. 4, ch. 9; bk. 10, ch. 5.
Sisimithræ, a fortified place of Bactriana, 15 stadia high, 80 in circumference, and plain at the top. Alexander married Roxana there. Strabo, bk. 11.
Sisocostus, one of the friends of Alexander, entrusted with the care of the rock Aornus. Curtius, bk. 8, ch. 11.
Sisy̆phus, a brother of Athamas and Salmoneus, son of Æolus and Enaretta, the most crafty prince of the heroic ages. He married Merope the daughter of Atlas, or, according to others, of Pandareus, by whom he had several children. He built Ephyre, called afterwards Corinth, and he debauched Tyro the daughter of Salmoneus, because he had been told by an oracle that his children by his brother’s daughter would avenge the injuries which he had suffered from the malevolence of Salmoneus. Tyro, however, as Hyginus says, destroyed the two sons whom she had by her uncle. It is reported that Sisyphus, mistrusting Autolycus, who stole the neighbouring flocks, marked his bulls under the feet, and when they had been carried away by the dishonesty of his friend, he confounded and astonished the thief by selecting from his numerous flocks those bulls which, by the mark, he knew to be his own. The artifice of Sisyphus was so pleasing to Autolycus, who had now found one more cunning than himself, that he permitted him to enjoy the company of his daughter Anticlea, whom a few days after he gave in marriage to Laertes of Ithaca. After his death, Sisyphus was condemned in hell to roll to the top of a hill a large stone, which had no sooner reached the summit than it fell back into the plain with impetuosity, and rendered his punishment eternal. The causes of this rigorous sentence are variously reported. Some attribute it to his continual depredations in the neighbouring country, and his cruelty in laying heaps of stones on those whom he had plundered, and suffering them to expire in the most agonizing torments. Others, to the insult offered to Pluto, in chaining Death in his palace, and detaining her till Mars, at the request of the king of hell, went to deliver her from confinement. Others suppose that Jupiter inflicted this punishment because he told Asopus where his daughter Ægina had been carried away by her ravisher. The more followed opinion, however, is, that Sisyphus, on his death-bed, entreated his wife to leave his body unburied, and when he came into Pluto’s kingdom, he received the permission of returning upon earth to punish this seeming negligence of his wife, but, however, on promise of immediately returning. But he was no sooner out of the infernal regions, than he violated his engagements, and when he was at last brought back to hell by Mars, Pluto, to punish his want of fidelity and honour, condemned him to roll a huge stone to the top of a mountain. The institution of the Pythian games is attributed by some to Sisyphus. To be of the blood of Sisyphus was deemed disgraceful among the ancients. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 11, li. 592.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 616.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, li. 459; bk. 13, li. 32; Fasti, bk. 4, li. 175; Ibis, li. 191.—Pausanias, bk. 2, &c.—Hyginus, fable 60.—Horace, bk. 2, ode 14, li. 20.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 4.——A son of Marcus Antony, who was born deformed, and received the name of Sisyphus, because he was endowed with genius and an excellent understanding. Horace, bk. 1, satire 3, li. 47.
Sitalces, one of Alexander’s generals, imprisoned for his cruelty and avarice in the government of his province. Curtius, bk. 10, ch. 1.——A king of Thrace, B.C. 436.
Sithnĭdes, certain nymphs of a fountain in Megara. Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 40.
Sithon, a king of Thrace.——An island in the Ægean.