Are there any secular accounts of the Sadduccees?
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I'm not sure what you mean by "secular" - as opposed to the New Testament gospels? There is an abundance of material in the writings of Josephus: specifically in Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, both of which were originally written in Greek. He speaks of their philosophical beliefs and the actions of various individual Sadducees, although he writes from a very clearly pro-Pharisaic perspective.
Aside from Josephus, and the references to Sadducees that exist in early rabbinic literature, there is nothing. Note that Lawrence Schiffman has argued that the sectarian literature found in Qumran represents the halakhic (legal) viewpoint of the Sadducees, but this is very much a minority opinion.
In amongst all of the extant references to the Samaritans, there is zero indication that they were ever subject to "persecution". The opinion of Maimonides, written down over a millennium after the Sadducees had effectively ceased to exist, is entirely irrelevant. (And cannot be used to extrapolate to his opinions regarding contemporary sects like the Karaites, who modelled themselves on what little was known of the Sadducees.)
There is no academic consensus as regards what happened to the Sadducees either - but then, there is also no academic consensus as regards who the Pharisees were and what happened to them. Likely, in both instances, they coalesced into what became rabbinic Judaism: the Sadducees were likely every bit as preoccupied with Torah-based legislation as were their various opponents.
For more information (albeit on the Pharisees in particular), see Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton (eds.), In Quest of the Historical Pharisees.
Postscript: It is wrong to assume that the Pharisees represented a "newer" group, and is also wrong to suppose that the Sadducees were "tied to" the temple. The Sadducees were a priestly group, but not all Sadducees officiated in the Temple and not all priests were Sadducees. Note also that the temple compound included the high court (Sanhedrin), which was not entirely Sadducean either.
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