SESSA AURUNCA, a town and episcopal see of Campania, Italy, in the province of Naples, on the south-west slope of the extinct volcano of Rocca Monfina, 27 m. by rail W.N.W. of Caserta and 201 m. E. of Formia by the branch railway to Sparanise, 666 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1931) 5,700 (town), 24,074 (commune). It is situated on the site of the ancient Suessa Aurunca, on a small affluent of the Liri. The town con tains many ancient remains, notably the ruins of an ancient bridge in brickwork of twenty-one arches, of substructures under the church of S. Benedetto, of a very large cryptoporticus, belonging probably to a gymnasium, and of an amphitheatre. The Ro manesque cathedral is a basilica with a vaulted portico and a nave and two aisles begun in 1103, a mosaic pavement in the Cosmatesque style, a good ambo resting on columns and decorated with mosaics showing traces of Moorish influence.
The ancient chief town of the Aurunci, Aurunca or Ausona, is believed to have lain on the narrow south-western edge of the extinct crater of Rocca Monfina (3,297 ft.). Here some remains of Cyclopean masonry exist; but the area enclosed is too small for anything but a detached fort of a time prior to Roman su premacy. In 337 B.C. the town was abandoned in favour of the site of the modern Sessa. In 313 a Latin colony under the name Suessa Aurunca was founded here.
See G. Tomassino, Sessa Aurunca e i suoi avanzi archeologici (1925). SESSION, the period or time that a legislature, court or council meets for business, whether for the day or for the full term. A session of the British parliament is reckoned from its assembling till prorogation ; usually there is one session each year. The Congress of the United States similarly meets once a year. Since 1933 each session convenes on the third of January and adjourns at pleasure. This system was established by the twentieth constitutional amendment and replaces that of long and short sessions meeting in December and adjourning in the summer and on March 4 of alternate years. The president may call an extraordinary session at any time. The term is applied to the sittings of various judicial courts, especially criminal. The sit tings of the justices of the peace or magistrates in Great Britain are "sessions of the peace," i. e. quarter sessions or "petty ses sions." In the United States a court of general or special ses sions is a local criminal court for lesser offences. The supreme court of Scotland is termed the "court of session." The name is also given in the Presbyterian Church to the lowest ecclesiasti cal court.