[18] Sisenna's work was widely read in antiquity, and became a crucial source for the 80s BCE: in Ernst Badian's words, it was "the standard history of the period".
[19] Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus, and Velleius Paterculus all cite Sisenna at some point, and other historians are assumed to have used him extensively as well, such as Livy, Appian, and Cassius Dio.
Cicero states that Sisenna was a learned man dedicated to his studies (doctus vir et studiis optimis deditus), and claims that his history 'far surpassed all its predecessors' (facile omnis vincat superiores).
[23] Cicero also mentions that Sisenna was fond of unusual and antiquated language: he sought to be a 'reformer of ordinary speech' (quasi emendator sermonis usitati), and persisted in using 'strange and unheard-of words' (minus inusitatis verbis uteretur).
[24] Sisenna may also be the writer, mentioned by Ovid, who translated a collection of erotic and picaresque tales by Aristides of Miletus entitled Milesiae fabulae, which was said to have served as a model for Petronius' Satyricon.